Artificial intelligence is dramatically changing the practice of cartography, not just as a mechanism for extracting and manipulating data, but as a tool for creating, curating, and interacting with geospatial images. A simple web search for “AI in cartography” points to a vast number of articles, examples, and website resources—reflecting just how embedded in the practice of cartography this relatively recent technology has become. With so much information about AI in cartography already online, I thought it might be interesting to see how an AI-driven chatbot (specifically, ChatGPT 3.5) woul ..read more

Guerrilla Cartography aims to promote the understanding that there are many views of the world, that how we understand space and place can vary, and that we should think critically about the maps and the graphics we make and consume. Our organization has designed processes for creating our atlases that support these goals. 1) By Featuring Diverse Narrative Viewpoints A different person or group of people produced nearly every map in our atlases, each contributing their indi­vidual aesthetic and experiences to the broad theme. We can never tell all stories about food or water, but crowd­sourcin ..read more

Interculturality as Shelter is a map made of many maps. It examines the ways in which young migrants experience interculturality in the neighborhood where their school is located. It shows their ways of feeling, walking, and making the city. A neighborhood where nobody cares Ciudadela is a town located in the southern part of the Buenos Aires province district of Tres de Febrero, Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a place of passage, circulation, trade, and exchange. Located halfway between one of the most important train stations and bus terminals in Buenos Aires City, and the train stat ..read more

THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: Who has the right to move freely through the city and who doesn’t? Map of Lima, Peru About the project TRANSitar Lima is a project that seeks to create a visual record of transphobic violence, based on collective mapping sessions. Trans, transvestites, and non-binaries* who participate identify the specific points of the city where they have experienced violence or where their exercise of citizenship has been violated, through drawing, collective mapping, and body mapping. Detail of an art Installation depicting the mapping project To transit the world Historically, t ..read more

Food, water, shelter. The tripartite of basic needs. Without these no living thing can survive. Not a spider, not a badger, not a tree, not a human. The first two — food and water — are obvious; without them, sustenance is impossible. The food we eat gives us energy through calories, vitamins, minerals, protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Water regulates our body temperature, cushions our joints, protects our spinal cord and muscles and cleanses our body. Food builds our bodies and water maintains them. And shelter protects. Shelter buffers us from harsh elements — high heat, extreme cold, rain ..read more

The two most common responses I get when I tell people that I’m a map librarian at UC Berkeley are: I didn’t know that was a job?! and I love maps! These are both fair reactions. It’s not a very common job. And maps are very cool. Just like a typical librarian’s work does not involve sitting around reading books all day, though, my job is much larger than just looking at fun maps all the time. The core of my work is actually helping people understand maps better so that they can use and create them. I help everyone from researchers looking at the historical extent of kelp beds along the ..read more

This counter-map was the product of a collaboration between the Junior Philippine Geographical Society – University of the Philippines Diliman (JPGS-UPD), the Save San Roque Alliance, Kadamay – San Roque, and most especially the urban poor residents of San Roque. The Beginnings Counter-mapping has been the main methodology and practice of our organization, as it believes that the discipline of geography can be an effective tool in addressing pressing issues in Philippine society. The perceived concept of spaces as mere containers of different occurrences and phenomena is something that counte ..read more

I am an artist and not a trained cartographer. Because my work or message is often about the environment, geopolitical issues, water, animal and human rights, I look for how I might highlight particular issues, and then draw a word picture to go with the visual message of the map. So my map-making process begins with language, conversation. I like to banter about the idea, and before I am consciously aware (but it seems to me after I realize my map conceptually) the feel of the map begins to emerge, and then the map begins to draw itself, but not, of course, without work.  Southern ..read more

When I was looking at the homeless census maps, my curiosity was sparked and I started to wonder what other visualizations and cartographical explorations could be possible. I have a deep interest in censuses because I have been working specifically in a peripheral communities’ census as a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo project: Democracy, Arts and Plural Knowledges[1] (DASP). This research experience, my current studies, and São Paulo having a rich and wide public dataset made me interested in doing more analyses. Considering this situation, I ..read more

To begin the process of creating this map, I asked questions. Devoured books. Consumed articles. Talked to historians and librarians. And read maps. Lots of maps. As I did, I wondered if there was something in the landscape, the communities, the culture that made Vermont unwelcoming, if not hostile, to African Americans? An historian directed me to U.S. Census data, which I examined, plotted as coordinates onto a graph, then connected into a slope. The slope signified a striking decline of the Black population over time and reminded me of the eastern border of a sideways Vermont with east up ..read more