Trialog 156/157 Mapping Space Action

This issue refers to the conference ‘mapping: space and action’ held in December 2017 at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, conceived and organised in collaboration with TRIALOG. Some of the contributions published in this issue were already presented at that conference. These are now accompanied by other, more recent or historical articles on the subject of ‘mapping’, understood as the practice of cartographic representation and interpretation of reality, which can serve as a tool for understanding spatial relationships (‘space’) and illustrating perspectives for ‘action’. In addition to their function of showing spatial configurations and connections, maps have also served since the beginning to establish territorial claims, to document ownership of land and territories, and to assert dominion over a territory. With the increasing accuracy of world maps in the 19th century, they were used to establish colonial claims to power and to document the partitioning of the newly discovered or explored regions of Africa, America and Asia among the European colonial powers. Mapping was thus an instrument of colonial power claims in the process of taking possession of foreign lands.
With the recent digitisation of spatial knowledge and the ubiquity of Google Earth or other virtual map formats, traditional analogue maps and city plans have been pushed into a niche and are in some cases no longer available in an updated form. Instead, virtual maps now feature detailed addresses of shops, hotels, restaurants, etc., a spatial localisation of commercial offers and services, a configuration of maps that is increasingly driven by business interests. On the other side, a variety of grassroots forms of mapping have developed, some of which claim to be anti-mapping or critical cartography, in contrast to the power related or commercial cartographic representation of the reality. In this tradition, mapping can be seen as a rather radical, collaborative practice ‘from below’ embedded in the context of political and social activities. As we can see, mapping is not a neutral act. It is a practice that is always shaped by positions, perspectives and relationships – and that actively intervenes in the production of space, knowledge and social orders. The contributions to this issue of TRIALOG put the focus on forms of ‘mapping’ as collective, interdisciplinary and action-oriented practices that combine spatial analysis (‘space’) with social engagement, artistic research and political responsibility (‘action’).
The issue opens with a reflection by Nepthys Zwer on the challenges of collective radical cartography, foregrounding mapping as a contested field in which power, authorship and collaboration must be continuously negotiated. With My Atlas, Vilém Flusser sets a philosophical counterpoint presenting what was then (more than 50 years ago) a visionary anticipation of virtual maps on small mobile devices that also make any additionalinformation about each place accessible. Surprisingly the article ends with a nostalgic reverence for the good old times when atlases were still real books. In her contribution ‘Maps on the Move’, based on many years of research on multi-locality in Bangladesh, Elisa T. Bertuzzo describes mapping as a dynamic, relational process that arises from movement, translation and the situated practice. Dominik Fraßmann extends this reflection by drawing unexpected parallels between the representation of the earth’s surface and the human face, highlighting shared mechanisms of reduction, abstraction and meaning-making. The graphic pages by Nadine Gutbrod complement this discussion, presenting mapping results developed under the conditions of the Covid pandemic, where restrictions on movement and physical proximity led to alternative, introspective and fragmentary forms of spatial representation. Elise Olmedo examines sensibility mapping through textile practices of women in a workingclass neighbourhood in Marrakech, demonstrating how material, tactile and gendered forms of mapping can challenge dominant modes of spatial knowledge. This is complemented by an interview with the Orangotango collective, which critically discusses activist mapping practices and rejects the notion of maps or atlases as closed, authoritative compendiums. Sadia Sharmin presents posters and results from mapping workshops with children and young people in Gothenburg, Sweden, in which their collective imagination for the development of their neighbourhoods opens up visual and narrative spaces that resist linear reading. With her work on neighbourhood and body mapping with children and young people in Chiapas, Maki Leos Hosokawa highlights body-related selfawareness, care and learning as central dimensions of spatial practice. Finally, in her contribution on Karail Basti in Dhaka, Sadia Sharmin understands mapping as a dialogical process that creates new urban narratives through long-term collaboration with residents and everyday urban life. The issue concludes with the conversation Space-in-Becoming, in which Günter Nest, in a dialogue with Simon Lupfer, reflects on mapping as an interdisciplinary and collective research practice situated between architecture, urban studies, art and theory. Here, mapping emerges not as a tool of control, but as a stance of attentiveness— one that keeps space open, relational and in motion.
Together, the contributions in Mapping Space Action understand mapping as a practice of engagement: with places, with people, and with the responsibilities that arise when making space visible.

Günter Nest and Klaus Teschner