Project 1- Mapping

When I think about mapping and what it is “to map”, I think of the act of imposing artificial borders onto a landscape. These borders can work with the landscape, or be totally imposed. The act of creating such boundaries in a landscape forces us to see the landscape in terms of these borders and the names and categories we give to them. Conversely, we also come to see the boundaries and the confined spaces they create in terms of the natural landscapes that become part of them. As I contemplated this idea, I thought of the way landscape and space are reflected in windows and doors of buildings. I began to think of the windows as the imposed boundaries of a map, the interiors of the buildings as the space created by the boundaries, and the reflections in the glass as the landscape, framed by and seen in terms of the borders of the windows. The buildings and the reflections, or borders and landscapes of mapped space, provide context for one another, and each shapes our perception of the other.
*Note: the stripes on some of the images are from light leaks in my camera.