Redefining Geographical Boundaries: Maps As Communication Design Tools for Pursuing Sociopolitical Goals

Maselli, Vicenzo (2024) Redefining Geographical Boundaries: Maps As Communication Design Tools for Pursuing Sociopolitical Goals. In: P/References of Design. Cumulus conference proceedings series, 1 . Cumulus Association, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, Budapest, pp. 101-116. ISBN 978-952-7549-02-5

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the crucial role played by visual design artifacts in reconfiguring the relationship between the so-called first and third worlds, between centers and peripheral or semi-peripheral cultures and territories, overtaking the societal structures perpetuating a cycle of subjugation and dependency that still affects several regions in the contemporary geography of the world. The aim is to contribute within the international debate about maps as cultural artifacts through a comparative exploration of two artistic experiences coming from different regions of the world. The case studies examined are the work of the South African draftsman Titus Matiyane and the one of the American maps and books artist Doug Beube, whose cartographic representations will be investigated as visual communication artifacts to overcome the "borders" of the map. Aspects under analysis, therefore, will be the ways in which they employ visual elements, symbolic motifs, cartographic conventions and narrative structures for suggesting the construction of an imaginary transnational identity. The experimental approaches described denounce sociopolitical phenomena that seem viscerally imbued with the history of civilizations and nations by redesigning visually and implicitly metaphorically the cartographic representation of the world. Imaginary, alternative and utopistic forms of maps destroying, and then rewriting and redesigning the boundaries between territories are the object of analysis, addressed as media for creating new perspectives for a more equal geographic shape of the world in which otherness and multiculturalism are values to be preserved.

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