Category: Events

Geography Awareness Week, GIS Day, and the 2020 U.S. Census

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

In raising-public-awareness news, the third week of November is Geography Awareness Week, and since 1999 the Wednesday of that week is GIS Day.

For this year’s GIS Day, the Library of Congress is holding a virtual event focusing on the 2020 Census, featuring a keynote by Census Bureau geography chief Deirdre Bishop as well as three technical papers. The program will be (or was, depending on when you read this) streamed on the Library of Congress’s website and on their YouTube channel on Wednesday, 17 November 2021 at 1 p.m. EST, and will be available for later viewing.

Upcoming Workshops

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Two workshops/courses coming in June:

Australian author and illustrator Kathleen Jennings will teach a workshop on fantasy mapmaking in June: the focus of Map Making and World Building is “on story and art,” the mapmaking illustrative rather than cartographical, and in general it seems to be about the relationship between map and story. The workshop will take place on 19 June both in-person (at the Queensland Writers Centre in Brisbane) and via livestream; tickets range from A$35 to A$100, depending.

A History of Maps and Mapping, a short introductory online course taught by Katherine Parker as part of the London Rare Books School’s program of summer courses, “will challenge students to destabilize and broaden the traditional definition of ‘map’, and to recognize maps as socially constructed objects that are indicative of the values and biases of their makers and the cultures that created them. Students will learn how to analyse and catalogue maps for a variety of research purposes, and to discuss changes in map technology and style without recourse to a progressive narrative of scientific improvement.” Matthew Edney will supply a guest lecture. The course runs from 29 June to 2 July and costs £100 (student) or £175.

Map Talks Online, Past and Future

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Map Time is “a series of short conversations with experts on maps and mapping from across the globe” hosted by the Harvard Library and the Leventhal Center on Instagram Live. Held every Thursday at noon, through August. Schedule and upcoming speakers here. Past talks are available on YouTube.

How to Do Map Stuff is a full day of live online mapping workshops that will take place on Wednesday, 29 April. Coordinated by Daniel Huffman, speakers will host their own livestreams at announced times (the working schedule is here).

Presentations made at last year’s British Cartographic Society/Society of Cartographers conference were recorded on video. The BCS reports that they’re now available online via this web page.

2020 Miami Map Fair Cancelled

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The 2020 Miami International Map Fair, originally scheduled for 13-15 March, has been cancelled. While they don’t blame the COVID-19 outbreak explicitly, it’s of a kind with many other recent event cancellations.

Festival of Personal Geographies

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Festival of Personal Geographies explores the use of art in creating personalized maps. Running until March 19 at several venues in Ames, Iowa, the Festival consists of an exhibition (“‘Index to a Place,’ an exhibition of prints, drawings and paintings that use the graphical languages of maps as a starting point in their creation”) and four workshops on personalized mapmaking. The event is organized by local artist Tibi Chelcea and hosted by ISU’s Design on Main Gallery. Free admission, free registration.

Previously: Personal Geographies; Art and Personal Mapmaking.

The Harvard Map Collection at 200

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Harvard Map Collection is celebrating its 200th anniversary. There’s an exhibition, Follow the Map: The Harvard Map Collection at 200, which runs through October 26 at Harvard’s Pusey Library, as well as a symposium, Follow the Map: Reflecting on 200 Years of the Harvard Map Collection, which takes place October 25 and 26; Susan Schulten will be delivering the keynote. [WMS]

Update: Here’s the exhibition catalogue.

At the Edinburgh Fringe: ‘The OS Map Fan Club’

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Helen Wood
Helen Wood

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? You may want to check out The OS Map Fan Club, an hour-long solo performance about Ordnance Survey maps that sounds relevant to our interests. Written and performed by Helen Wood, The OS Map Fan Club has been making the fringe and festival circuit this year and has been getting good reviews (see here, here and here). At the Edinburgh Fringe until 18 August; details and tickets here. [Map of the Week]

Previously: Cartography: ‘A Gently Interactive Show’ at the Halifax Fringe Festival.

Mapping the Borders

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Inge Panneels and Jeffrey Sarmiento, “Liverpool Map,” 2010.

Mapping the Borders, a series of talks, exhibitions and workshops hosted by the University of Sunderland from 18 to 25 November as part of this year’s Being Human festival, includes an art exhibition, a workshop on glass mapmaking, a full day of activities on the 19th, and a number of pop-up talks. [NLS]

Cartography: ‘A Gently Interactive Show’ at the Halifax Fringe Festival

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

If you’re in Halifax, you might still have a chance to catch a showing of Colleen MacIsaac’s Cartography at the Halifax Fringe Festival. As The Coast describes it:

For Fringe she has meticulously constructed a small show at The Living Room—maximum 30 seats and 20 minutes—in which she paints a map live, trying to get back to a single tiny, perfect moment in time. […] “I liked the idea of the need to make a map,” says MacIsaac on the patio at The Haligonian, “as opposed to the need to follow a map.”

It’s a gently interactive show: The house size dictates which geographical feature MacIsaac uses as the map’s start point. Patrons are handed a tiny program (“for wayfarers”) that contains a questionnaire asking for places they feel safe, alive, that they can’t remember. “I wanted it to be something where the audience would have a chance to reflect,” she says, “or have some moments in the show where the audience could contemplate their own histories, or their own memories.”

Three showings left: one tonight, one tomorrow afternoon and one Sunday evening. [WMS]

Seymour Schwartz’s Hidden Passion

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Seymour Schwartz is a familiar figure in the map world. A professor of surgery by day, he’s built a reputation as a map collector (and donor), historian and author (his books include The Mismapping of America and Putting “America” on the Map). On Thursday he’ll be appearing at the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery, as one of the speakers in their Hidden Passions series. University of Rochester news release. [WMS]

Previously: Schwartz Collection Exhibition Opens Monday; Schwartz Donates Maps to University of Rochester.

Opening Today: British Library Exhibition on 20th-Century Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line opens today at the British Library. It runs until 1 March 2017. Admission is £12, with reduced-price and free admissions in some cases.

The Guardian’s Mark Brown and the Spectator’s Stephen Bayley have long and thoughtful pieces about the exhibition. The Independent’s Simon Calder is somewhat more solipsistic, but observes that this exhibition “might prove to be a wintry retrospective on the summer of peak cartography.”

There was also a segment on BBC Breakfast (using music from The Lord of the Rings was a bit of cognitive dissonance); the clip is available on Twitter:

The British Library’s Maps and Views blog has a sample of the maps on display.

maps-20th-drawing-line-book-coverAs you’d expect from a major exhibition like this, a companion book is out this week from the British Library. It’s available from Amazon UK in both hardcover and paperback; those of us in North America will have to wait a bit until it turns up here.

Previously: British Library Exhibition on 20th Century Maps Opening in November.

Library of Congress Conference Celebrates 500th Anniversary of Waldseemüller’s Carta Marina

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Manuscript Page from the 1516 Carta Marina. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.
Manuscript Page from the 1516 Carta Marina. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

Later this week, the Library of Congress will host a two-day conference celebrating the 500th anniversary of Martin Waldseemüller’s 1516 map, Carta Marina. Facts or Fictions: Debating the Mysteries of Early Modern Science and Cartography will take place on 6-7 October in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The conference agenda is not limited to Waldseemüller or his 1516 map; notable speakers include Kirsten Seaver, Chet Van Duzer and, with a major lecture, Dava Sobel. Free admission; no tickets or reservations required.

(The 1516 Carta Marina should not be confused with the Waldseemüller map most people mean: it’s his 1507 Universalis Cosmographia that names “America.” Nor should it be confused with Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina.)

New and Upcoming Exhibitions

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Open now and running through 26 February 2017 at the Boston Public Library’s Leventhal Center, Shakespeare’s Here and Everywhere asks “What roles do place, identity and travel play in his comedies, tragedies and histories? Explore these questions and more through maps, atlases and illustrations of Shakespeare’s time and beyond.” [Tony Campbell]

The Northwest Passage: Navigating Old Beliefs and New Realities opens 29 September 2016 at the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine. [WMS]

Mapping Australia: Country to Cartography runs from 4 October 2016 to 15 January 2017 at the AAMU Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Utrecht, Netherlands. The exhibition “will explore the different representations of Australia. Alongside the VOC’s historical maps of Australia’s coast, drawn by Dutch cartographers in the 17th and 18th centuries, are striking depictions of the country in contemporary art works of Aboriginal artists that are derived from thousands of years of traditions.” [WMS]

British Library Exhibition on 20th Century Maps Opening in November

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The British Library’s upcoming exhibition, Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line, runs from 4 November 2016 to 1 March 2017. Tickets are now on sale.

Two World Wars. The moon landings. The digital revolution. This exhibition of extraordinary maps looks at the important role they played during the 20th century. It sheds new light on familiar events and spans conflicts, creativity, the ocean floor and even outer space.

It includes exhibits ranging from the first map of the Hundred Acre Wood to secret spy maps, via the New York Subway. And, as technology advances further than we ever imagined possible, it questions what it really means to have your every move mapped.

The Evening Standard and TimeOut London look at one item going on display: Harry Beck’s original sketch of what would become the iconic Tube map.

Hennig and Dorling on ‘Seven New Maps of the World’

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

“Seven New Maps of the World,” a presentation by Benjamin Hennig (Views of the World) and Danny Dorling (People and Places), both renowned cartogrammers, will take place on the opening weekend of the Oxfordshire Science Festival  Sunday, 26 June 2016 at 1 PM, at the Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford. Tickets £5. [Benjamin Hennig]

Update, 20 June: And here are the seven maps in question.