Saturday, November 6 | 11:55 am - 1:00 pm
Counter-Mapping for a Co-op World
This year's keynote presentation features three innovative presenters!
About the presenters:
Liz Mason-Deese & Tim Stallman
Tim Stallmann and Liz Mason-Deese are both members of 3Cs, the
Counter-Cartographies Collective. 3Cs is a radical map-making affinity
group based out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina that works mainly on
questions of labor, political economy and the university. Liz
Mason-Deese is currently a fourth-year PhD student in Geography at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research deals with
autonomous urban social movements in Latin America. Tim Stallmann is a
freelance cartographer and GIS analyst. His current work uses maps to
envision local food systems and organize towards food sovereignty.
Daniel Tucker
Daniel Tucker has worked as a cultural and political organizer in Chicago for the last ten years, initiating a number of large-scale collaborative local projects and events. As a consultant, Daniel has helped non-profit organizations of various sizes evaluate and advance their communications work.
He is co-creator of the People's Atlas of Chicago and curator of the "We Are Here Maps Archive," a collection of maps and charts about social and political issues which was featured in an Experimental Geography exhibition. His recently completed book, "Farm Together Now," (with co-author Amy Franceschini) maps emerging movements for sustainable food production through interviews with activist farmers across the US.
About the presentation:
Keynote Presentation: Counter-Mapping for a Co-op World
Counter-cartography can be described as a map-making process which "fundamentally questions the assumptions or biases of cartographic conventions, challenges predominant power effects of mapping, or upsets power relations". Counter-maps take many forms, and in many cases, the process of creating counter-maps can be as transformative as the maps themselves.
Using their own work mapping the economic, social and political relations around US universities amongst many other examples, Liz Mason-Deese and Tim Stallmann will discuss the powers of maps, give an introduction to the history and theory of counter-cartography, and show how the process of making maps can and has been a potent tool for resistance.
Daniel Tucker will expand on these examples by discussing how mapping can become a metaphor for research, understanding, and remembering. Examples include documentary projects AREA Chicago (a 5 year old magazine about Chicago activism), Town Hall Talks (an interview project with 100 political artists from 5 cities) and Farm Together Now (a book of interviews with activist-farmers throughout the US). While these projects are not limited to maps, they let inspiring stories and critical reflections become visible through research and storytelling.
