Maps and Cookies

Wandering the internet, I came upon fakeisthenewreal.org, where artist and urban planner Neil Freeman has posted some lovely and intriguing mapping work.  I think my favorites are Streets Centered, Street Gradient, Contextual Calendar, and Symbolic Alphabet, but really, it is difficult to choose.

And, and in line with my love of playful art projects in public space, Jane McGonigal is writing out the myth of sysiphus, in cookies, one word at a time, all over the world.

More Maps of Every Place I Can Remember

A few more places that I remember:

 

I don't evidently don't remember very much of that one.

The strange collection of shapes mid-top of this one is supposed to be a playground, but I found that as I was drawing my memory of how parts connected shifted and blurred.

Please pardon the off-kilter nature of these photos. These drawings are currently in a sketchbook, though ideally Maps of Every Place I Can Remember would be displayed differently.  I think I've mentioned it before as an internet-based project. If displayed on a wall, I imagine an expansive smear of maps all pinned overlapping and crowding one another, like the crazy collage on the wall of a servial killer in a movie, or the committed detective.

Maps of Every Place I Can Remember

One of my perennial projects - started long ago and occasionally returned to - is a sketchbook in which I endeavor to draw maps of every place that I can remember. The scale and boundaries of these maps are dictated by my recollection. I've started with the locations I my earliest memories: Grandparents houses, elementary schools, etc. As a result, though a few are quite detailed and complete, most have large gaps.
Particularly in these earliest spaces, I find myself surprised by how often a space that seems completely remembered in my mind, turns mercurial once put to paper. I will start a drawing of the first house I ever lived in sure that I recall, if not every cupboard and molding, at least the placement of rooms and doors, only to find myself rapidly flummoxed. Did my parents closet face east, or west? How large was the living room compared to my room?
My ideal version of this project is actually a website, where others could upload their own memory maps, and a cumulative diagram would form - a country delineated by the experiences of all involved. Although it would be intriguing to see how far this country would stretch, most interesting to me would be the places where the maps would overlap (although I imagine that such overlaps would often be unrecognizable without labeling).