MIT SLAB

sidewalk laboratory

critical cartography

Currently there is an explosion of work with similar sensibilities and preoccupations to SLAB.

Although it is difficult to categorize it all, we wanted to share some links in order to give the bigger picture, to inspire, and to commiserate. The group of links on this page involve what we are calling critical cartography, which is currently being explored with passion by geographers, architects, artists, planners, and those defying labels. Our working definition of critical cartography is “mapping the unmapped”: it notices people and things that are overlooked or denied and it usually debunks professionalism with an anti-sleek visual vocabulary and techniques. The categories listed here are more used to break up the page into digestible groups but are invariably problematic i.e. “artists” could be applied to any number of people on the page. We welcome suggestions for more links.

The other page of links we assembled concerns street vending.

 

urban map projects

Mapping a Whole Darn Year: Flash Map

Mapping Kibera Slum


Image: Meta Mapa: Hand Maps

Crowd-sourced Ways to Experientially Depict NYC

1:1 Maps Traced by Foot

Napkin Sketching of Online Maps

Mapping Commutes by Zipcode

The Zoomable Map on Paper

The Never Ending Drawing Map

Follow the Money

Mapping the Muni

Right Basic Building


Image: The Geotaggers’ World Atlas #2: London, Eric Fischer

ComplexCity: Hidden Patterns of Urbanity

Local Code

Occupy public space mapping

People’s Atlas

 

mapping collaboratives

Kitchen Budapest’s SUBMAP

3C’s: Counter-Cartographies Collective

Mapping the World

Deep Oakland

‘the Hand-Drawn Map Association’

Axis Maps: Cartography, Visualization, Design

Contrail: Bike Advocacy Tool

Affective Geographies Research Cluster

 

exhibits

In Celebration of Sidewalk Life (SLAB Rotch Library exhibit)

You are Here: Mapping the Psychogeography of NYC (Pratt)

scholarly mapmakers and books

Atlas of Radical Cartography

Trevor Paglen

The Exposed City: Mapping Urban Invisibles

Emotional Cartography

Mei-Po Kwan’s Space-time paths

Mapping Istanbul

Mapping New York

Margaret Pearce, Indigenous Mapping

Denis Wood


Image: Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas, Denis Wood

 

mapping blogs and collections

Cartogrammar

Visualcomplexity.com

Making Maps: DIY Cartography

The Map Room

Strange Maps: Cartographic Curiosities

Cartastrophe

CartoTalk: A Public Forum for Cartography and Design

Axis Maps


Image: Closeup of Chicago Typographic Map

Feltron infogaphics

 

visual artists using cartographic imagery

too many to mention but for a great start, consult Katharine Harmon‘s sumptuous two books

Layla Curtis

The Saatchi Gallery: Sohei Nishino

Shannon Rankin

Christian Nold