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This diagram shows the path of a Tiger Swallowtail feeding on the flowers in my garden. A grid defines the background, and includes distortion to signify the sun’s impact on the structure of space.
The butterfly’s path is not one that has been planned, but rather is responsive to circumstances – in this case, to what blooms in Savannah, GA in July. It expresses a fluid and changeable narrative emerging in actual time.
When we traverse a city, town, or natural landscape what is the relationship between our own and the “official” map or maps of those spaces? Built into official maps are decisions about what matters – what is “real” and therefore worthy of being seen. We can see that the mapmaker is a stakeholder.
If we superimposed personal maps onto official maps, there would surely be points in common among the many elements, but as many or more points that would differ. Ours might include specific buckling of the pavement beneath a very old tree, or the direction of the ripples in the mud at low tide on a familiar beach. What matters to us, is deemed worthy of being seen, and helps us find our way, may be completely overlooked by the official map.
Counter-Mapping practices highlight the value of lived experience in deciding how to show where we really are, how we navigate through space and over time, and what matters to those who inhabit those spaces. The mapmaker dictates reality.
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