Discussant on "Space and Place I: Critical Mapping and Counter-Cartography” at NYU Hagop-Kevorkian Center

Description

As part of the “Digital Forays” series, on April 1st, 2021, #NYUKevo virtually hosted “Space and Place I: Critical Mapping and Counter-Cartography” with Majd Al-Shihabi (Systems Design Engineer), Nermin Elsherif (CHEurope), Ghazal Jafari (University of Virginia), and discussant Timur Hammond (Syracuse University). Al-Shihabi discussed his work on Palestine Open Maps, highlighting the process of layering maps from different historical periods to show how representations and geographies have changed and are remembered through counter mapping. Additionally, Al-Shihabi talked about the work of translating colonial ontologies to Open Street Maps and the disparity between translated and original Arabic Wikipedia articles as a way to show how local knowledge is no longer attached to the spaces where it is produced. Elsherif discussed the common threads between mapping projects she created and participated in, creating counter maps of Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo that challenge the colonial knowledge embedded in cartography by attempting to represent personal, literary, musical, and other stories on the map. A driving force of her work has been negotiating the tensions and translations between the analog and the digital. Jafari’s work interrogates the ways in which design and spacial processes are complicit in maintaining colonial power structures. She shared her recent project on the development of the Khuzestan region along the border of Iraq and Iran in the late 1950s, where the histories and practices of the region were erased by Point Four modernizing discourses and technologies whose dams have lead to environmental degradation. Hammond asked participants to think through the questions of translation, temporality, and layering in their work. He continued the discussion by asking about the solidarities and successes fashioned over the course of Al-Shihabi, Elsherif, and Jafari’s projects. We would like to thank all the speakers for their insightful and inspiring comments and our participants for their questions. Please see our website to learn more about and register for future events: http://bit.ly/NYUKevoSpring21.