Talking Maps celebrates maps and the stories they tell about the places they show and the people that make and use them. The exhibition showcases iconic treasures from the Bodleian’s world-renowned collection of more than 1.5 million maps, together with exciting new works on loan and specially commissioned 3D installations. Featuring ‘imaginary maps’ such as Grayson Perry’s Red Carpet and Map of Nowhere and JRR Tolkien’s maps of Middle-earth, the exhibition offers a new perspective on the enduring power of maps. The exhibition also explores the latest digital developments in cartography such as the ‘Trump tweets’ cartogram as well as cartograms exploring such topics as migration, language diversity and politics, power and poverty.
The data was compiled and analysed by Worldmapper, an independent educational project, led by Benjamin Hennig, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Iceland and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Oxford, and Tina Gotthard, Associate Lecturer at the University of Iceland.
Benjamin Hennig, said:
The use of Twitter by Donald Trump is quite unique even at a time when social media appears to be such an influential factor in society. But the fact that Twitter has become a major means of global policy making is remarkable. The way the president uses this medium to communicate his major policy agendas allows us to utilise this data in an entirely new way. The way that the references to other countries have been made since Trump got elected president tells us a lot about how US foreign policy has been shaped in the past years. This map makes this much more understandable than any mere number could do. It summarises Trump’s foreign policy priorities in a really thought-provoking way.”
The exhibition is curated by Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London and author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps, and Nick Millea, Map Librarian at the Bodleian Libraries.
Jerry Brotton, co-curator of the exhibition, said:
“Worldmapper’s innovative transformation of online data, such as presidential tweets into a world map reveals powerful stories about the world around us, and shows the enduring power of maps, whether they are made from paper or pixels.”
Nick Millea, co-curator of the exhibition, said:
“Thanks to Worldmapper’s inventive cartographic input, we have been able to bring Talking Maps right up to date, demonstrating how maps can convert data into a dramatic and eye-catching spectacle."
The Bodleian Libraries gratefully acknowledges the support received from donors who have made the Talking Maps exhibition possible.
The Cartogram, along with the complete data documentation, can be viewed at on the Worldmapper website.
* Using all tweets and retweets made by the account @RealDonaldTrump. Analysis by worldmapper.org, using data from Twitter extracted on 15.05.2019.
Every map tells a story. Talking Maps is a celebration of maps and what they tell us about the places they depict and the people that make and use them.
Drawing on the Bodleian's unparalleled collection of more than 1.5 million maps, this exhibition brings together an extraordinary selection of ancient, pre-modern and contemporary maps from a range of cultures and in a variety of formats as well as showcasing fascinating imaginary, fictional and war maps.
Talking Maps explores how maps are neither transparent objects of scientific communication, nor baleful tools of ideology, but proposals about the world that help people to understand who they are by describing where they are.
Highlights on show include the Gough Map, the earliest surviving map showing Great Britain in a recognizable form, the Selden Map, a late Ming map of the South China Sea, and fictional maps by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Map treasures from the Libraries' collection will be shown alongside specially commissioned 3D installations and artworks, and exciting works on loan from artists and other institutions.
A copy of the Talking Maps publication can be purchased from the Bodleian Shop ... Oxford, England.
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