ISSUE SCOPE: Design Determines the Impact of Change
Mapping Meaning,
the Journal
Issue N o 2 • Fall 2018
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2 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Design to impact change.
Issue N o 2
3
About
Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Minidoka Project Idaho 1918,
Photo from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, of the U.S. Department of the Interior
4 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
"824 Min Surveying
party of girls on
the Minidoka project."
Original caption,
National Archives
How might interdisciplinary practices promote a
reconsideration of the role that humanity plays in
a more-than-human world?
In a strongly fragmented and disciplined-based
world, Mapping Meaning offers a collective
space to imagine, create, and propose new
models in the face of radical global change and
ecological and social crises. Each issue takes
up a particular theme and is edited by different
curatorial teams from a variety of disciplines.
All issues include the broadest possible calls for
submission; gathering together divergent and
experimental knowledge practices. Mapping
Meaning, the Journal, is published two times
per year.
www.mappingmeaning.org
Issue N o 2
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6 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Founding
Editorial Board
Melanie Armstrong
Krista Caballero
Nat Castañeda
Sarah Kanouse
Vasia Markides
Jennifer Richter
Carmina Sánchez-del-Valle
Karina Aguilera Skvirsky
Sree Sinha
Trudi Lynn Smith
Sylvia Torti
Linda Wiener
Toni Wynn
The Honors College at the
University of Utah serves as
Mapping Meaning Journal’s
partner and initial fiscal sponsor.
Consistent with Mapping
Meaning’s mentorship mission,
the Journal is committed to
publishing a breadth of work from
those at all stages of their careers.
Managing Editor: Sylvia Torti
Artistic Director: Krista Caballero
Visual Designer: Aliza Jensen
Issue Editors:
V.M. Price and C. Sánchez-del-Valle
Issue N o 2
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Content
10
Introduction
V.M. Price and C. Sánchez-del-Valle,
Issue #2 editors
12
Section 1: Community Ecology
14
Mapping for Social Change: Cartography
and Community Activism in Mobilizing
Against Colonial Gender Violence
Annita Lucchesi
22
Borders Studio: Analyzing the U.S./
Mexico Border at a Borderland
Institution Through an Architecture
Design Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
40
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
50
Section 2: Silent Spring
52
Deconstruct/Reconstruct: Out Finding
Beauty within Invasive Plant Ecologies
Megan Singleton
8 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
62
In the Pines: Mapping the Longleaf
Anne Janine Lindberg
74
Section 3: Descent of Man
76
Plants and trees in urban landscapes:
the counter-design of non-humans
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
86
All indifferent decay
Caroline Clerc
94
Section 4: Regenesis
96
Homes
MJ Tyson
106
Placing Inclusion Ahead
Ileana Rodríguez
112
One to Another
Sarawut Chituwongpeti
122
Conclusion
Issue #2 editors
Front and Back Cover Images,
C. Sánchez-del-Valle
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Introduction to
Issue N o 2
V.M. Price and C. Sánchez-del-Valle
Make Me See Change Now: design to impact
change
“I sense that humans have an urge to map
– and that this mapping instinct, like our
opposable thumbs, is part of what makes us
human.” - Katharine Harmon. [You Are Here:
Personal Geographies and Other Maps
of the Imagination. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press. 2004.]
As change is constant in our environments,
design can steer change to more positive
and less adverse consequences. It can be a
deliberate execution of a plan to determined
goals, or the plan itself.
Design is both process and product. Yet, here
is the paradox: because it exists in the space
of the fuzzy, undetermined and uncertain
problems, its results have desired as well as
unexpected consequences.
Submittals for this issue are maps of design
for change in an environment. By “mapping”
we mean that the reader can visualize not only
what the work is, but what are its intentions
10 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Mapping Meaning, The Journal
Introduction
and consequences. The submissions
are diverse in scale and outlook, from a
specific design process, to work in or of the
environment. They are contemporary, and
challenge a narrow conception about design.
The works offer critical consideration of
design products and for acting through
design to have direct ecological, social,
cultural, emotive, or spiritual impact.
There are new approaches, and unique
perspectives. They argue for the necessity
of other views and actions and spaces.
They offer a thoughtful and constructive
consideration of reality, as well as raise
discomforting questions.
They focus on environments that are internal
and external, ranging from inside oneself, in
the community, or across the globe; a place,
ecosystem, community, or culture; or as a
way of being or doing in service, operation,
or action.
different, unrecognized or unacknowledged.
We have organized the works into clusters
as we saw connections between them.
The groupings are loose and fragile, but
the threads that run through them give us
opportunities for dialogue. We have used
one of the author's works to title each
section. For each section, we provide a brief
statement highlighting what brings them
together.
“A fuller understanding of what we don’t
know is itself new knowledge and redefines
what we know.” - Pete Turchi. [Maps of the
Imagination: the Writer as Cartographer;
San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press.
2004.]
They respond to the dangers of an external
or internal status quo for its complacency,
unpreparedness, or resistance to the
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Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
12 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Section 1:
Community Ecology
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
Community Ecology 2013
Gouache and graphite on paper
30” X 22”
The cries of an ecology are often first heard as
one is walking along its edges. The consequence of
hearing and then choosing to listen is to map the
problem for the rest of us to face, and act.
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Mapping for Social Change:
Cartography and Community
Activism in Mobilizing Against
Colonial Gender Violence
Annita Lucchesi
Annita Lucchesi is a doctoral student in the
Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at
the University of Lethbridge, located on Treaty 7
territory. She is a Southern Cheyenne descendant,
and her ancestors made their home where the
Rocky Mountains meet the Plains, in presentday
Denver. She holds a BA in Geography from
the University of California, Berkeley, and a MA
in American Studies from Washington State
University. Annita is the founder of the MMIW
Database, a comprehensive data source on cases
of missing and murdered indigenous women in
the US and Canada, and her current academic
research examines how community mapping
projects can generate new knowledge and tell
more holistic stories on such violence. In her work
as a researcher and advocate, she frequently
assists in community and policy responses to
gender violence in indigenous communities,
and leads workshops on indigenous and critical
mapping.
www.annitalucchesi.com
14 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
Acknowledgements
Abstract
I acknowledge the Wiyot Nation, on whose
lands I resided as a guest while writing this
article, and the Blackfoot Confederacy, on
whose territories I resided as a guest while
developing the skirt map. Special néá’eše to
Marisa Miakonda Cummings and Jackie Crow
Shoe, who helped me to see that indigenous
women have always been cartographers.
On January 21, 2017, millions of people
worldwide participated in the first annual
Women’s March, and to commemorate its
record-breaking participation and continued
engagement with feminist issues, a second
march was planned on January 20, 2018. This
paper narrates the story of a project aimed
at supporting and honoring activism to call
attention to the issue of missing and murdered
indigenous women (MMIW) at the global 2018
Women’s Marches. In so doing, it traces the
development of the project, and its transition
from land-based activism, to map-making, and
back to the MMIW movement again. This paper
argues that such a process demonstrates the
power of community-grounded, culturallysensitive
cartography, and the role that
maps can play in mobilizing and empowering
communities to effect social change.
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Annita Lucchesi MMIW Map, 2018
16 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
The Marches
On January 21, 2017, over seven million
people marched in the global Women’s
March, in protest of the violent policies of the
newly inaugurated Trump administration,
and the myriad social and environmental
injustices plaguing the world today.
In Washington, D.C., it was the largest
political demonstration on record, with
estimates of anywhere between 500,000 and
1,000,000 participants; and, over 5 million
of the participants located elsewhere in the
United States. To commemorate the march
and build on its momentum, a second march
was planned for January 20, 2018.
In the 2017 Women’s March, Native American
and indigenous women did participate—
many traveled from remote locations to
Washington, D.C. to do so.
However, the 2018 Women’s March in Seattle
reflected a turn to address the racial and
colonial dynamics of mainstream feminism,
by shifting leadership to local Native women,
and including a call for justice for missing and
murdered indigenous women (MMIW).
be missing from the march as well, and how
we might honor them.
In 2015, I started a database of cases of
MMIW in the US and Canada. By the time
of the 2018 Women’s March, there were
over 2,500 cases logged. So, I made a
Facebook post offering march participants
an opportunity to bring the database to the
streets: anyone who agreed to carry a sign
honoring a missing or murdered indigenous
women from their city, area, or tribe would
be sent a name that they alone would be
responsible for carrying.
By the time the march started, approximately
120 names were disseminated across the US
and Canada. Many of the people who asked
to carry signs sent me photos of their signs,
or of them carrying them.
One of the signs, in honor of Nikita Wilson,
a Choctaw woman who was murdered, is
prominent in one of the now iconic photos of
the Seattle Women’s March.
I believe the spirits of these women would
have been there, whether a sign was carried
in their honor or not.
At the time, I was living in Canada, and
chronically ill. As an indigenous woman,
an advocate for MMIW, and a community
member, I wanted to contribute to the march
in a meaningful way, but knew I could not
physically be there. In feeling that sadness,
that my body just was not able to be there in
that moment, I began to think of all the other
Native women and girls whose bodies would
However, I also believe that the signs
helped them to be strong in their presence,
grounded the march participants in the work
the march aimed to do, and served as a
powerful reminder of the ways in which the
loss of indigenous women pervades each
community.
There are women and girls whose voices
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Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
There are women and girls
whose voices deserved to be
heard, whose contributions
were missed, due to the
colonial violence that took
them from their families,
communities, and nations.
18 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
deserved to be heard, whose contributions
were missed, due to the colonial violence that
took them from their families, communities,
and nations.
This colonial violence is seen in myriad
forms—police brutality, disproportionate
rates of gender violence due to racial
stereotypes and gaps in the justice system,
the overrepresentation of indigenous girls in
foster homes and in sex trafficking, and the
imposition of a Western patriarchal system of
power, for example.
Each one of the signs called attention to that
violence, and located it in specific places and
in the lives of specific victims.
As a cartographer, my current work
examines how maps telling stories about
MMIW can help to generate new knowledge
on the issue, and offer a more holistic
understanding of the impacts of such
violence. Wanting the signs to tell a story of
resilience and resurgence, and not just of
loss, I created a map depicting where the
signs were carried.
There were a number of strategic choices
made in the aesthetics of the map. First, it
was drawn in the shape of a ribbon skirt—a
cultural garment many indigenous women
across the US and Canada wear at special
events, ceremonies, community functions,
and increasingly, at political actions. Indeed,
ribbon skirts became commonplace at Idle
No More protests, Women’s Marches, MMIW
awareness events, and even at efforts to
stand for water at Standing Rock. Different
families and communities have varying
teachings on the origins and meanings
of ribbon skirts, but more generally, they
are meant to represent the sacredness of
women, the relationship women have to the
earth, and the cultural vitality of indigenous
women today.
Designing the map in the shape of a skirt
is in honor of these ideas and uses of the
ribbon skirt, and takes inspiration from
a popular form of public awareness on
MMIW—symbolic displays of dresses, skirts,
or women’s garments.
Ribbon skirt by Marisa Miakonda Cummings
The colors on the skirt are also meaningful.
The body of the skirt is red, the primary color
used in MMIW organizing, and the ribbon
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Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
colors—red, blue, purple, teal, lavender, and
pink—are the colors of awareness ribbon
campaigns representing forms of violence
common among MMIW, namely police
brutality, sex trafficking, domestic violence,
sexual assault, foster care, and violence
targeting young girls. The background print
of the skirt is a collage of photos of signs
and march participants who carried them,
underneath a textural pattern of the names
of each of the women and girls who were
carried.
The map was initially published in a news
article about the MMIW Database and my
work, and ended up circulated on social
media. In a surprising turn of events, women
started creating real skirts, inspired by the
skirt map, using the same design that the
map depicts.
Maps as Dresses, Dresses as Maps
Inspired by the community response to the
initial map, I made another Facebook call
for help: sketch out a meaningful design
representative of your nation’s women’s
clothing, and I will transform it into a map
telling stories of missing and murdered
women from your community.
From that post, the project has now grown
to include dresses being designed in
collaboration with six indigenous women
artists and regalia makers, representing the
Assiniboine, Ponca, Choctaw, Blackfoot, and
Cheyenne peoples.
It is my hope that as the map collection
grows, more collaborations with artists from
other nations are able to occur.
Like the skirts that had inspired by the map,
these new skirts were worn at ceremonies,
powwows, community events, and political
actions.
A person I met in Montana mentioned she
had seen one worn at Gathering of Nations
Powwow in New Mexico. A colleague said
she had seen one at ceremony in northern
California. A friend in Maine commissioned
one from another friend in Nebraska.
The map, meant to honor the movement
to end violence against indigenous women
and girls, ended up becoming part of the
movement.
Though I did not expect the skirt map
to be transformed into real skirts, upon
reflection I came to understand the
inherent connections between the two, and
demonstrate the gap between the mediums
are not as far as I had imagined.
Fundamentally, both maps and ribbon
skirts are storytelling devices. They connect
our narratives and our bodies to the land
we tread and communicate our sense of
belonging and views of the world around us.
They are visual representations of the social
relations we are bound up in.
Just as maps help us navigate and illuminate
the geographies we traverse, ribbon skirts
and the symbology embedded in their
20 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
designs signal who we belong to, where we
come from, and who we represent.
In the case of the ribbon skirt map, the
ribbon colors were a powerful representation
of who we are accountable to as community
members—indigenous victims of violence like
police brutality and domestic abuse.
While this project has demonstrated the
unique connections between maps and
ribbon skirts, it has also become an example
of the power of community-grounded
cartography.
Moreover, by allowing the aesthetics of
the map to be determined by community
cultural practices and values, the map deeply
resonated with its audience, and inspired
continued engagement.
In this way, this form of mapping is impactful
in its reiterative contribution to a social
movement, and provides a model for other
cartographers who aim to utilize maps in
their work to effect social change.
By designing a mapping project that
encouraged and empowered community
members to participate in efforts to address
an issue they were passionate about, the
map became a mobilizing force for social
change.
Issue N o 2
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Border Studio: Analyzing
the U.S./Mexico Border at
a Borderland Institution
through an Architecture
Design Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Ane Gonzalez Lara is a designer with extensive
experience in practice at a wide range of scales
and project types in the U.S. and Europe. She
has taught at the School of Architecture and
Planning at UNM, and has been a partner at Idyll
Architects, an architecture firm that operates
between Albuquerque and Houston and between
the real and the ideal. In Spring 2019 Ane will be
teaching at Pratt Institute.
Ane received her Master of Architecture from
the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura
Universidad de Navarra (ETSAUN). Previous
to working at UNM, she worked in Houston,
Germany and Spain. Her research focuses on the
tectonics, assembly systems and materiality of
contemporary Ibero-American architecture and
on the U.S./Mexico border; while also exploring
the relationship between space, geometry and
materiality through her practice.
22 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Abstract:
Boundaries and borders have generated
much attention in the political realm of the
U.S.A. over the last two years. The proposed
Wall between the U.S.A. and Mexico has
generated different responses from
architects and builders across the country.
Following this debate, a question arises: What
is the role of architecture and architects on
this issue?
I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my
words."
Candidate Trump, 2015, “Full text: Donald
Trump announces a presidential bid” The
Washington Post, June 16th 2015
The words quoted on this page were in
the air when I was tasked to teach my first
optional studio at the University of New
Mexico (UNM) School of Architecture.
This essay focuses on a Borders Studio
taught at the University of New Mexico
(UNM) School of Architecture. The studio
was created after seeing how polarized and
diverse the opinions about the proposed wall
were among architects and builders, and to
stimulate the critical thinking abilities of the
students.
The studio involved a series of projects that
tackled different scales. Students found
their own voices on the conflict during the
semester, and the studio created a platform
for them to bring issues like immigration,
labor and politics to the classroom.
This essay reflects on the students’ designs
to create alternatives to the proposed wall
focusing on the Chamizal parks in El Paso and
Juarez.
Introduction
“I will build a great wall -- and nobody builds
walls better than me, believe me --and I'll
build them very inexpensively. I will build a
great, great wall on our southern border, and
With several ideas in mind about possible
studios to teach - including the adaptive
reuse of a historic building and a housing
project - I couldn’t stop thinking and being
terrified about the fact that architecture, as
a profession, was not having a clear stance
on the political conversations of the time,
especially when discussing the construction
of a wall.
Days after President Trump was elected, the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) issued
its infamous message saying that “The AIA
and its 89,000 members are committed
to working with President-elect Trump
to address the issues our country faces,
particularly strengthening the nation’s aging
infrastructure.” 1
The message faced an incredible rejection in
the social media and the hashtag #NotMyAIA
filled the tweets and comments of a large
number of AIA members. Six days after
issuing the statement, AIA uploaded a video
on their website saying that their original
message was a mistake and it should have
never happened. But after this controversy,
Issue N o 2
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
the national AIA has yet to position itself in
regards to this project.
Neither has it responded to the resolutions
that the AIA chapters of the border states of
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas
have signed in opposition to the construction
of the proposed wall.
After much deliberation, I decided to embark
on a journey to research the border and the
architect's implication in geopolitical borders.
In January 2017, I decided to launch the
Borders Studio at UNM.
When the name of the participants of the RFP
was made public, some publications judged
the ethics of the architects participating
on these projects. These projects made
clear that there is not a clear line dividing
the ethicality and the anti-ethicality of
participating in any of the calls mentioned
above. So, as these conversations filled the
news and architecture publications, I used
these questions to shape the studio and the
conversations that the students had during
the semester.
Borders Studio at UNM SAAP
On February 2017, months after being
elected, President Trump issued a Request
for Proposals (RFP) “for the design and build
of several prototype wall structures in the
vicinity of the United States border with
Mexico.” 2 This call had numerous responses
within the architecture community and while
some, like the Architecture Lobby, thought
that architects shouldn’t take place in the
construction of the wall by any means;
others, like the firm JuneJuly, decided to take
place on the call and submit a proposal.
The RFP also generated a competition titled
“Building The Border Wall”. This competition
asked the participants to design a wall to stop
flows of illegal immigration from entering the
United States. The competition also faced
some backlash and the organizers decided to
add a question mark to the competition’s title
to become “Building The Border Wall?” and
also changed the brief to ask for a more open
ended solution to the border.
The University of New Mexico draws a large
number of its students from the border
region. More than 21,000 of the 30,000
students enrolled at UNM call the border
states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and
California home. 3
UNM is also a Hispanic Serving Institution,
where 32.8% of the students at its main
campus identify themselves as Hispanic.
The first semester the studio was offered,
seven students out of eleven were originally
from the border region. Their knowledge
and personal experiences of this region were
invaluable to the development of the studio.
Out of the eleven, nine spoke Spanish as
their first language. The studio is currently
taught in English as the primary language,
but project reviews in Spanish are also
offered to Spanish speaking students.
Diversity is also sought at the public reviews
that the students have during the semester.
24 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Guests from other UNM departments –
politics, planning, law, landscape architecture
and art¬– are invited to talk to the students
during the semester. The participation of
these guest reviewers generated some very
interesting conversations with the students,
who asked guests about their different
perspectives, and engaged other fields in
their proposals.
The Borders Studio was divided into three
main assignments and learning objectives.
Each assignment required different
approaches to the questions of geopolitical
borders and architect’s agency on the issue.
The last project focused on the Chamizal
parks situated in El Paso and Juarez.
The first assignment required students to
engage in a thorough research of the U.S./
Mexico border and other international
geopolitical boundaries. Some of the
questions that they had to elaborate on were:
What are the reasons stated by politicians for
the wall to be needed? Why is there a heavy
militarized concrete border with Mexico, and
not with Canada? What are the implications
that the wall will have for our country?
After some weeks doing research, and having
some very inspiring conversations, students
were asked to put their findings in graphic
Assignment 2, Ecotone diagrams and sections by Gonzalo Gonzalez and Jaziel Cervantes
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
26 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Assignment 1,
Human Population and Natural Wildlife
analysis by Gonzalo Gonzalez and Jaziel
Cervantes.
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
form. Divided in groups and focusing on
the differences between the Mexico and
Canada borders with United States, each
group focused on one or two aspects of their
research that they found more relevant.
The topics analyzed this year were:
militarization and agreements between the
countries, human population and animal
migration in North America, criminal activity
on each border, physical geography and
trade, travel and tourism.
The students who focused on human
population and animal migration along the
border compared the traveling of animals
through the U.S./Canada border and through
the U.S./Mexico border. They also researched
the flora and the animals that currently live
on each border, and that would be affected
by the construction of a wall.
students shared their findings so all would
have access to the different sets, and would
overlay the different maps that each group
created for this assignment.
Following the first assignment, the students
were asked to come up with alternatives to
the existing fence and wall. This exercise was
titled #ThisIsNotAWall. During this part of the
studio, students engaged in conversations
around the agency of architects on this
conflict. They were also encouraged to
think about their scope of work, not as
a beautifying act, but as an exercise of
critical engagement with the issue. After
much debate and discussion of different
ideas, students decided their level of critical
engagement with the project: some decided
to be more pragmatic and work within the
existing constraints, while others decided to
re-design the border itself.
Once this research was completed, the
One of the student’s proposals involved using
28 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Left | Assignment 2,
"This Is Not a Wall"
(detail) by Antonio
Castañeda and Samuel
Albert.
Following | Chamizal
dispute, existing
conditions by Ane
Gonzalez Lara.
the existing fence as a green wall where
citizens from both countries could harvest
vegetables. Her proposal also used the green
wall as a space activator, and as a tool to
bring people from both sides together.
Another student decided to picture what the
future could look like if the wall was built
and completed. The aim of his proposal,
which had an apocalyptic tone, was to create
awareness about the consequences that
completing the wall would bring, and how
possibly the people from the United States
would be the ones taking the wall down over
time.
Other students designed a park system that
would allow migratory birds to continue
their path, and create an ecosystem for them
along the border. This zone would only be
inhabited by animals and would be a safe
zone that would span along the entire border
creating a wild refuge and ecotone along the
border. Their proposal suggested a more
gradual transitioning between each country
where a wall and militarized techniques
wouldn’t be necessary.
Two students proposed a series of
components for an infrastructure that would
grow along the border on top of existing
public buildings and open spaces. This
infrastructure would host learning facilities
such as universities, schools and career
centers to host students from both sides of
the border. The infrastructure would also
allow for housing, public parks and plazas
to exist along with the learning facilities.
The ultimate goal of the proposal is for the
border to disappear as the infrastructure
grows.
All the projects were also accompanied by
a letter addressed to President Trump. The
letter read as follows:
Issue N o 2
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
30 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
President Trump,
We already have a wall.
A physical barrier marks 650 miles of our southern border. This boundary
separates communities, disrupts ecosystems, and perpetuates a nationalist
sense of entitlement that isolates the Land of Opportunity. Illegal
immigration, job security, economic stability, drugs trafficking, crime, and
terrorism are all real issues that we face as a nation, but none of them has
been, or will be solved, by continuing to build walls.
A border wall represents a medieval reaction to contemporary issues. It is one
of the crudest tools available in the repertoire of geopolitics and is a blatant
confession of failed diplomacy. If as a nation we continue to advocate for,
and construct barriers between our neighbors, we fear that the world will do
the same towards us. This rhetoric will cause The United States to isolate itself
from the global community and retreat into a Land of Reclusion. Along this
path we will lose our essence of diversity, optimism, and influence, defining
characteristics that make our nation “great.” Instead of pushing forward
a pledge to “build a wall,” we ask you to imagine our borderlands as an
extension of the American narrative, as Lands of Opportunity.
This is Not a Wall proposes a shared borderland, a series of infrastructural,
community-specific, interventions that extend perpendicular to the current
dichotomy of border conditions. Here, communities from the United States,
Mexico, and Canada would grow naturally into one another, implementing
programmatic components into an elevated framework that manifests
around each location’s existing urban fabric. These interventions would
be site-specific, allowing for the architecture to act as a mediator between
nations, and address the complex issues within these borderland cities and
the greater border condition. As each community reimagines the border as
a shared, malleable, space, the rigid division inherent within a boundary
and the idea of a “wall,” will dematerialize to create a seamless transition
between nations. Within these shared spaces, architecture responds to the
realities of disruption and separation by promoting bi-national “borderlands”
of opportunity, rehabilitation, and growth – spaces where diversity brings us
together instead of keeping us apart.
As Americans, and as global citizens, our future depends on legitimizing and
understanding coexistence. Our hope is that through reimagining the border
as a series of bi-national communities, we will promote and amplify empathy,
working towards shared solutions to social and economic equity, urban
growth, healthcare, crime, and climate change within a world that will only
continue to become more interconnected.
Con amor,
A Concerned and Optimistic Citizen & A Bi-National Citizen
Issue N o 2
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Left | Assignment 2,
"This Is Not a Wall" by
Antonio Castañeda
and Samuel Albert.
The process of writing and having to
condense all their ideas in one page was a
very interesting process. The students had to
question their own decisions, analyze their
thinking process and articulate their ideas
concisely yet effectively. Even if the projects
were very strong and full of energy, I have
to admit that whenever a student would
read a letter, it would be a very powerful
moment, and maybe even the strongest act
of resistance of all. During the third part of
the semester, the students were asked to
deploy their ideas with more resolution in the
Chamizal Park.
The Chamizal Park is a very unique park on
the border. Chamizal El Paso and a Chamizal
Juarez are currently divided by the border in
El Paso and Juarez. This piece of land shifted
from one side to the other of the boundary
before the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo was forced
into a cemented riverbed as it makes its way
through El Paso and Juarez.
The Chamizal is a piece of land that, in 1827,
José Ponce de León was granted from the
Mexican government. This land was on the
south side of the Rio Grande.
The years before 1864, the river slowly
moved south. As a result of this process, the
Chamizal moved to the El Paso side. In 1886,
an exceptionally large flood aggravated this
process. In 1897, the river flooded again
creating what was known as the Cordova
Island, which was actually a peninsula.
In 1899, in order to avoid more floods, U.S.
and Mexico split the cost of building an
artificial cut in the heel of the horseshoe
bend that formed the island. Once the cut
was finished, Cordoba Island was still part of
Mexican territory even if it was surrounded
by U.S. soil and the Rio Grande on its south.
Cement boundary markers were built at
the original river bed to set the geopolitical
boundary. These markers can still be found
32 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
at the Chamizal National Memorial in El
Paso.
home value, and forced to leave their houses
behind.
Until 1963, different presidents tried to
solve the issue without success. On January
14,1964, United States and Mexico signed
an agreement to set the new boundary
and channelize the river in order to stop
its fluctuation. “The agreement awarded
to Mexico 366 acres of the Chamizal area
and seventy-one acres east of the adjacent
Cordova Island.” 4
This shifting of the land also meant that
the nationality of those living in this area
changed as the river meandered. The settling
of 1968 meant that houses that were on the
American side of the border, were now on
the Mexican side. The owners of properties
in the Chamizal were given the option of
continuing being American, or becoming
Mexican. Those who decided to be American
were only paid for their land and not for their
Nowadays, the U.S. side of the park is not a
very active, nor a celebrated space. On a field
trip visit to the U.S. side of the Chamizal, the
park was hardly populated and the Chamizal
Memorial Center was closed.
On the other hand, the Mexican side of the
park is greatly used by the neighbors of the
area. The park is the biggest public space
in Juarez, and it contains an archeology
museum. During the weekends, the park is
activated by performances, street vendors,
joggers and families. It seems as if the park
acts like a showcase of the vibrancy of the
Mexican communities on the southern side
of the wall, as if they are trying to show that
the grass might be greener on their side.
The history and current use of this fluctuating
place created the perfect backdrop for some
Right | Chamizal
dispute, meandering
of the Rio Grande by
Ane Gonzalez Lara.
Issue N o 2
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
Assignment 3, Border Fluctuation by Eli Helbig and Jacob Lovato.
34 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
As architects, I believe
that we should be aware of
the systems that operate
within our practice and
define our role within
these realities. Thinking
that architecture is an
isolated field in charge of
beautifying structures will
cause more problems, and
won’t help us create more
equitable environments.
36 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
of the proposals that the students created
for the park. The third assignment was titled
#ThisIsNotAWall Chamizal Park. For this
exercise, the students had to develop the
concepts described in the second proposal
in a more detailed manner. The students
also decided whether to work individually, or
in groups of two. The results of their projects
had to be presented in graphically on boards
along with a 500-word description.
This exercise allowed for the proposals to
become more meaningful. Although the
scale of the park is relatively big for an
architecture studio, going from a broad
proposal to a more detailed one enabled
the students to create more thoughtful
proposals.
One proposal re-designed both Chamizal
parks so that the river would be allowed to
meander again. This public space would shift
nationalities as needed by each country,
allowing for Mexico or U.S. to use the land
for big events. The design also allowed for
the river to flow creating a configuration that
would allow both nationalities to use the
park. The description of this project titled
Border Fluctuation read: “Once the river is
unleashed from its concrete channel and is
allowed to fluctuate and once again engage
the flood plains upon which it exists, new
environments emerge and migrate within
the meandering of the river. Here, spatial
identities start to emerge and can begin
to stitch the cultural and political fabric of
both the U.S. and Mexico into the future;
where the static border becomes more of
a permeable boundary meant to offer new
and exciting social opportunities through the
'natural' shifting of the river, as it once was.”
Since the project had a very optimistic
approach, the students also decided to use a
non-realistic representation of their project.
Another student proposed to use some of
the existing wall infrastructure to create
a green wall that would allow growing
vegetables on both sides of the wall. She
also proposed that in some areas the green
wall would be thickened allowing for the wall
to become a threshold, a thickened wall that
is also inhabitable.
Her proposal in the Chamizal allowed for
people from both sides to get to see each
other, interact and have a common project:
a garden that both sides would have to
take care of. Her project emphasized the
disconnection that currently exists between
both Chamizal parks and the people from
each side of the border.
Conclusion
There was a clear evolution in the work of
the students and their mindset throughout
the semester. The students who took
the studio were unsure in the beginning
about the approach that they should take
with their proposals, and some were even
afraid of them being too provocative. But
at the end of the semester, the students
challenged each other’s points of views and
asked each other to be more provocative
and raise awareness on the conflict through
their projects, letters and representation
Issue N o 2
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Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
techniques.
After finalizing the studio, some students
decided to continue their work and
research. Some started the Twitter account
This Is Not A Wall at the end of the semester
to follow the discussions on border projects
and architecture through social media. One
student designed a portable shelter that
people crossing the border can carry with
them to protect them from the sun, and be
used as shelter at night. Another student is
currently researching the Bracero Program
and how it impacted the growth of small
settlements along the U.S. and Mexico
border.
As architects, I believe that we should be
aware of the systems that operate within
our practice and define our role within
these realities. Thinking that architecture
is an isolated field in charge of beautifying
structures will cause more problems,
and won’t help us create more equitable
environments.
Maybe one of the beauties of architecture
is its unlimited options, but in the same way
that we discuss beauty and composition in
studio classes, we should have moral and
ethical conversations in the classroom.
Perhaps our studios, and architectural
education in general, are too naïve: hardly
talking about how projects would be
financed, the impact that they would have
on the surrounding houses and neighbors,
the economy that they tap into...
I think that the projects produced at
the Borders Studio could be considered
somewhat naïve, but working on these
projects generated long conversations about
ethics, politics, economy and architecture. It
has also given confidence to students living
in a borderland region to think that their
voice can be heard, and that as architects,
they should be included in conversations
beyond aesthetics.
The goal of studios like this one is not to
create a set of ethical rules that all designers
and architects must adhere to, nor to
shame those with different ethical rules
than ours, but to start generating some
individual ethical parameters for students
to help them define the work that they
feel comfortable doing. The goal is also
for the students to start questioning the
involvement that architects should have on
these types of conflicts, and hopefully make
them aware of their own responsibilities
when leaving school and facing real projects
and clients.
Endnotes
1 American Institute of Architects. 2016, December 1. Open
letter to members and friends of the international AIA
National Region. Accessed on September 4, 2017 from
http://www.aiainternational.org/home/2016/12/1/openletter-to-members-
and-friends-of-the-aia-international.
html
2 Federal Business Opportunities. (2017, February 24). RFP.
Retrieved September 4, 2017, from https://bit.ly/2lDXj9z
2 Office of Sponsored Projects, University of New Mexico,
http://osp.unm.edu/hsi-mi-reference-overview.html
Accessed on May 13th 2018
3 Office of Institutional Analytics, University of New Mexico,
http://oia.unm.edu, Accessed on May 13th 2018
38 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
4 Gregory, Gladys and Liss, Sheldon, “Chamizal Dispute”
Texas State Historical Association, https://tshaonline.org/
handbook/online/articles/nbc01, Accessed on May 13th
2018
5 “Where History and Culture Come to Life”, Chamizal National
Memorial website National Parks Service website, https://
www.nps.gov/cham/index.htm?allacrosstexas.com,
Accessed on May 13th 2018
References
American Institute of Architects, New Mexico Chapter. (2017,
September 19). Resolution on Alternatives to the Border
Wall, Passed. Retrieved from http://aianewmexico.org/
Documents/BorderWall_Resolution091917.pdf
"Cordova Island", Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State
Historical Association. June 12, 2010. https://tshaonline.
org/handbook/online/articles/rrc04 Accessed on May 13th
2018
“Floods and The Chamizal Issue” National Park Service,
February 24 2015, https://www.nps.gov/cham/learn/
historyculture/rio-grand-floods-and-the-chamizal-issue.
htm, Accessed on May 13th 2018
Friedman, Nathan, “Political Props Territorial Performance
and the Chamizal Dispute” Mas Context, http://www.
mascontext.com/tag/chamizal-treaty/ Accessed on May
13th 2018
Korody, Nicholas, “US/Mexico border wall competition
provokes controversy” Bustler, (March 16, 2017). http://
bustler.net/news/tags/competition/326/4754/ usmexico-border-wall-competition-provokes-controversy/
competition-news Accessed September 4, 2017
Lambert, Leopold, “The New York Times and The U.S.
Border Wall: A Love Story”, The Funambulist, https://
thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/the-new-yorktimes-and-the-u-s-border-wall-a-love-story
Accessed May
13th 2018
NPR Staff, “50 Years Ago, A Fluid Border Made The U.S. 1
Square Mile Smaller” NPR Radio Diaries, September 25th
2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/09/25/350885341/50-
years-ago-a-fluid-border-made-the-u-s-1-square-milesmaller
Accessed May 13th 2018
Miranda, Carolina A., “Trump’s border wall may be
controversial, but some Southern California firms want
to build it”. Los Angeles Times, (March 2, 2017). http://
www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-camborder-wall-presolicitation-vendors-20170302-story.html
Accessed May 13th 2018
The Architecture Lobby, #NotOurWall Campaign http://
architecture-lobby.org/project/notourwall/ Accessed May
13th 2018
Rael, Ronald. Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the
US-Mexico Boundary. University of California Press, 2017.
International Boundary and Water Commission, City of El Paso
Department of Planning, National Park Service
Issue N o 2
39
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
Daisy-O’lice I. Williams is an Assistant Professor in
the Department of Architecture at the University
of Oregon. Over the course of her career, she
has taught design communication, architectural
theory, and design studio at the beginning and
graduate levels. Her research and teaching is
driven by the underlying assumption that what
we use to design influences what we are able
to design. Williams specializes in architectural
visualization, and is particularly interested in
modes of communication that directly engage the
human experience. Recent investigations include
the role of digital collage in the student design
process and the viability of augmented reality as
a collaging medium. Williams is also committed
to investigating and increasing African-American
presence and participation in architectural
education.
40 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
"To be in the margin is to be
part of the whole but outside the
main body." bell hooks
“I need to understand how a place
on the map is also a place in
history…” Adrienne Rich, Notes Towards a
Politics of Location
Issue N o 2
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UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
Left | Zachariah
Petett’s 3D “Final
Program” diagram:
Critical analysis that
plots programmatic
components based
on necessary square
footage and necessary
privacy, noise, and
access levels.
In the fall of 2015, the University of Oregon
Black Student Task Force published a plan
outlining twelve demands to “ensure that
current and future Black students have a
culturally appropriate and welcoming campus
climate”. The seventh on their list required
the university to “create a substantial
endowment fund and support system to
FUND AND OPEN a Black Cultural Center”.
As a result of the taskforce’s activism and
labor, the University of Oregon will welcome
a new Black Cultural Center to campus with
construction slated to begin in 2018.
This design studio was created as a means to
study the intellectual implications of such an
undertaking.
Working from the assumption that
architecture is a form of cultural production,
is it possible to achieve an architectural
embodiment of ‘blackness’?
Is this a noble design pursuit or a one-way
ticket to superficial essentialism? Like all
ventures by a state-funded institution, one
has to answer, for whose benefit is this?
What is the role (or perhaps responsibility)
of a black cultural center on a mostly
white campus in an even more racially
homogeneous state?
The goal of this studio was not to mimic
the actual project in process or scope
(though rich lessons were learned from it
along the way). We had the advantage of
suspending real-world limitations of budget
and time. Therefore, our studio worked
from an expanded program with a focus on
university-community partnership.
Our aim was to envision a UO Black Cultural
Center situated to support both the campus
and region 50 years from now. Our studio’s
42 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
proposed Center needed to fulfill dual needs:
to be a nucleus for black student life on
campus, and offer support to community
groups who provide critical programming for
the study, preservation, and advancement of
black traditions and heritage.
In addition to student support and event
space, our program included community
gathering rooms, permanent exhibit space,
a rotating gallery, reflection space, and
a studio/office for a scholar in residence
program. Many student projects pushed
the civic possibility of the center further by
incorporating performance theaters and
special collections archives.
Our project occupies the same site as
the real UO Black Cultural Center project
with extended boundaries that could
accommodate a larger program and provide
conditions that speak to the public nature of
the proposed facility.
The corner site is located at the eastern
margins of campus, marking a clear transition
between campus buildings and residential
neighborhood. It is an edge condition that
will someday become a prominent formal
gateway into campus as new projects
continue to be developed. Primary building
uses within this area include residence halls
and academic support facilities.
However, this area is in the beginning stages
of what could be nudged into becoming a
cultural “district” for the University, with the
Many Nations Long House, Global Scholars
Residence Hall, and the Museum of Natural
and Cultural History to its immediate west,
and Maude Kerns Art Gallery to its east.
The Mathew Knight Arena is also in close
proximity to the north and visible from our
site.
Given the transitional nature of the site,
students were asked to propose a redesigned
Right | Jennah Byrd_
Approach: The
building is bisected
into two volumes, with
civic functions like the
museum and archives
housed in a larger
mass that lifts up at the
corner and reaches out
toward the city.
Issue N o 2
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UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
East Campus Design Area Plan that clarified
pedestrian and vehicular access as well as
green space.
Student projects had to respond to the dual
purposes of serving as a student support
space and as a multiuse civic building. Thus,
students had to consider a radiating sphere
of users with needs of black students at the
core, and the general public at the broadest
scope.
One of the inherent challenges of the project
required students to consider how to provide
refuge to a subset of the student population
who often feel marginalized and unsafe,
while also offering an intentional interface for
education and sharing. Thus, many schemes
made clear divisions in building mass, entry
sequence and façade treatments to convey
this shifted notion of public vs. private.
The greater purpose of our studio was to
investigate ways in which architectural design
acts as an extension of cultural production.
44 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
Gianna Prather’s board layouts: This proposal by Gianna Prather integrates building with landscape, encouraging pedestrians to
walk through the project site and engage the center along a choreographed exterior path. The grand scale of the project is offset
by moments for pause and reflection along the way.
Issue N o 2
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UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
U.S. university campuses; and museums that
center African American history.
The campus buildings selected included the
Museum of Natural and Cultural History
for its public educational function; and
the Many Nations Longhouse and John E.
Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes
because each offer targeted support for
unique subsets of the student population.
This study proved useful in understanding
how current UO buildings offer cultural
programming to the general public while
also restricting circulation via identity-based
layers of access.
Zacharia Petett's Vignette: Renderings reveal the sculptural
quality of the proposal with sweeping forms that surround a
“sacred” rotunda at its core.
Specifically, our work probed the intersection
of black aesthetics, architecture, and identity.
We operated from the notion that every
building is a thesis. Therefore, students were
invited to place a great deal of intention into
forming their rationale based on case study
analysis.
The studio was broken into groups that
were assigned three different categories
of buildings for study: select UO campus
buildings; other Black Cultural Centers on
From the list of BCCs provided to them,
students analyzed the Neal Marshall Black
Culture Center at Indiana University, the
Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center at
Oregon State University, and the Frieson
Black Cultural Center at the University of
Tennessee at Knoxville. These centers ranged
in size and scope of programming.
Aside from the spatial programming and
siting, students wanted to know how and to
what degree was the function of the facility
evident in its design and how much did that
design diverge from the campus vernacular.
The museums analyzed included: the
Museum for African Art/ The Africa Center,
in Queens, N; the National Center for Civil
and Human Rights in Atlanta, GA; and the
Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland
African American History and Culture in
Baltimore, MD.
46 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
Assuming larger budgets and heavier roles
as national civic institutions, students
documented how cultural meaning
presented itself in the aesthetic design of the
project as intended by the lead architect.
This distinction is critical. As with many
noteworthy buildings, it becomes difficult to
find information on how these intentions are
shared, understood, or even realized by its
occupants and visitors.
In order to help us sift through the complex
task of imagining a meaningful relationship
between architectural space and black
identity, we engaged written works by
prominent scholars often grouped in pairs to
express alternative views.
Memory. They posit (albeit for different
purposes) that lived experience and
perception begins within the body. At a
glance, the studio projects were quite diverse
in their appearance. Those shown here are
perhaps some of the most gestural of the
group—they reach, stretch, lean, curve,
and swoop. However, not all of the projects
were so formally bold. Some intentionally
deferred to their surroundings and employed
more modest forms that sheltered dramatic
interiors.
While a few students did engage metaphor to
draw out formal ideas about building mass
To begin, we compared Jack Travis’ Notes on
a Black Architectural Aesthetic against Mario
Gooden’s The Problem with African American
Museums. Travis’ slow-grown, near manifesto
of principles that define a black aesthetic was
challenged by Gooden’s critique of the use of
“cultural stereotypes”.
Later in the term, when students were asked
to design “sacred space” within the project,
we paired TaNehisi Coates’ Between the
World and Me, with bell hooks’ “Homeplace:
A Site of Resistance” in Yearning in order
to draw out ways that architecture and
place become protective skins that mediate
“otherness”.
These were later followed by Juhani
Pallasmaa’s The Eyes of the Skin, and Norle
Lokko’s “Body.Memory.Map” in Sites of
Jennah Byrd's Vignette: “Sacred space” for reflection shaped
by outdoor sculpture park made of perforated corten steel
panels that cast and receive patterns of light on their surface
indicating the passage of time. The collage-like textural quality
of this image captures the emotive quality of the space.
Issue N o 2
47
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
and materiality, the entire studio seemed to
see the physical expression of the building as
secondary to the choreographed experience
it would provide. Materiality, texture, color,
shape, and volume were manipulated—
but not to represent something else (like
blackness, justice, community, the pacific
northwest, etc.).
Instead, architectural elements were
modified to shape particular experiential
moments guided by the perception of light,
sound, gravity, scale and movement. Though
these two design approaches aren’t mutually
exclusive, our group tended to be motivated
by achieving some sensory or emotive
outcome rather than engaging a cultural
signifier.
Overwhelmingly, students were skeptical
that a specific brick pattern, color scheme,
or volumetric shape would be enough
to carry the weight of shared meaning.
Above all, this studio project was inherently
political. The ordering of space, people, and
property always is. However, this project
tested the limits of our training, identity, and
experience. Most of the readings were new
48 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
UO Black Cultural Center
Daisy’Olice I. Williams
Zachariah Petett’s 3D “Concept” diagram: Generative form diagrams that explore expressions of power, sanctuary, and
community through building mass.
text and territory for architectural design
students. As a group we journeyed without
the expectation that any of us would arrive
at a codified black aesthetic. Instead, our
context-heavy investigations ended up
providing a deep dive into user experience.
Most students came into this studio with the
expectation that the Black Cultural Center
should be more than just another campus
building in whatever ways that meant to
them. By studio’s end, projects translated
that desire by compelling a dialogue between
normative campus design strategies and the
ever self-aware black student experience.
Issue N o 2
49
Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
50 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Section 2:
Silent Spring
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
Silent Spring 2013 Gouache and
graphite on paper 30” X 22”
Surprisingly, analyzing and mapping the
devastation of an ecosystem may very well lead
in a positive direction. These articles recognize
and map our shared creative destruction, but hint
at new paths to make and take for its repair or
transition.
Issue N o 2
51
52 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Deconstruct/ Reconstruct:
Out Finding Beauty within
Invasive Plant Ecologies
Megan Singleton
Left | Megan Singleton
Here and There, 2017
Handmade Paper of Kozo,
dyed with Indigo, Persicaria,
and Oklahoma Soil
10 Panels, Each Panel 2' X 4'
Megan Singleton is an artist and educator located
in St. Louis, Missouri. Her ecology-based work
crisscrosses the boundaries of contemporary
craft combining sculpture, hand papermaking,
installation, and digital applications. She received
her MFA in Sculpture from Louisiana State
University and BFA in Photography from Webster.
She exhibits nationally and internationally
and her work can be found in the collections
of the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, the
Robert C. Williams Paper Museum, as well as
numerous private and corporate collections. She
teaches Fiber Arts at Saint Louis University and
papermaking workshops nationally. She has
been the recipient of a $20,000 Artist Fellowship
from the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission,
the Smelser Vallion Visiting Artist Fellowship in
Taos, NM, and the Kingsbrea International Artist
in Residence in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick.
In 2017, she was commissioned to create sitespecific
mural projects at the Granoff Center
at Brown University for the T2 Art initiative at
Lambert International Airport in Saint Louis.
www.megansingleton.com
Issue N o 2
53
Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
Megan Singleton
A Creative Process
54 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
Issue N o 2
55
Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
A Creative Process
Paddling through vegetation-filled bayous,
hiking along riparian trails, or trekking
along a sandy coastline examining plants
for their potential to be transformed into
handmade paper, is key to my creative
process. This process, by nature, is designed
to be stimulating, inspiring, and enjoyable.
The exploration of diverse biomes across
the country invigorates my artistic practice
and informs the direction of my botanical
research. The experience of navigating
through new landscapes is always full of
surprises and intriguing observations. Using
contemporary place-based methodologies
coupled with the historic craft of hand
papermaking, I have designed a fivepoint
practice to utilize when embarking
on investigating a new landscape and
creating new bodies of work. It begins with
Exploration.
Exploration
Then, I begin planning my excursions and
organizing the necessary tools, permits,
and equipment, such as a canoe, that I
may need to collect plant samples. Nothing
compares to being fully immersed in a wild
natural environment. I arrive with intent and
am constantly stimulated by the shifting,
interconnected relationships of the plants
and ecosystems that I observe around me,
which leads us right into my next point.
Observation
Out in the field, I am looking, listening,
smelling, and touching all the things around
me. I record my observations in a field
journal and with my camera. Photography
plays an important role in the development
of ideas and in the interpretation of
experiences. I use the photographs I
take to develop sculptural forms, as well
as printed and bound in artist books as
companion pieces to further contextualize
my installations.
Curiosity is the impetus for exploration. I find
myself drawn, physically and metaphysically,
to areas where a body of water plays
a dominant role in the landscape. My
explorations, like most, begin with maps
of the location I will be traveling to. I look
for public land managed by the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM), the National Parks
Service (NPS), or State Parks with navigable
and accessible trails. I also look at satellite
imagery of the areas I plan to go to get a
sense of the density of the vegetation, as well
as trail and road conditions.
Over the years, I have observed the
destructive beauty of various invasive species
such as the seas of purple blossoms of water
hyacinth choking Louisiana bayous, and the
lyrical swaying swaths of common reed along
the shores of Monomoy Island.
When I am looking at these plants as
potential paper, I am seeking invasive species
that are herbaceous, non-woody and have
a high cellulose fiber content. I do a “twist
test” on site to determine the strength of a
plant material’s fiber by taking a clipping and
literally twisting the fiber as many times as I
56 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
can before it breaks. The results of this test
determines whether I will take the plant back
to the studio for further material research.
Research
Research is a critical component of my studio
practice. This includes searching for historical
data about specific locations, discovering how
certain plants were introduced into a region,
and how the biodiversity has been affected
since the introduction of an invasive species.
The physical, material research includes
processing plant fibers down to just cellulose
and testing the plants viability to be made
into paper. Not all the plants I experiment
with end up as great candidates for paper,
but that doesn’t mean they still can’t be used.
The fiber may be too weak, too woody, or not
contain enough cellulose for pure sheets, but
it may have an interesting texture, color, or
be significant in the conceptual component
of the work.
When this is the case, I will mix the plant
with another fiber such as abaca or cotton,
to create the necessary pulp recipe for the
application I am using it for in the studio.
Which brings us to Interpretation, aka,
making ideas into objects.
Interpretation (aka Making)
The work I create is place-based, inspired
Megan Singleton Turions: Wintering Buds, 2017
Handmade Paper of Abaca, Milfoil, Hydrilla, and Grass, Steel, Concrete 27 Sculptures Dimensions Variable
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Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
58 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
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Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
by a desire to interpret the landscapes of
disrupted, invaded ecologies and natural
phenomena. I create sculptural installations
by deconstructing plant material down to a
visceral pulp slurry, then I reconstruct the
fibers into paper sculptures that interpret
and abstract the plant forms that I have
observed. Paper pulp is such a versatile
media, it can be used to make sheets
of paper for a book, wrapped around
armatures to create sculpture, or cast into
the landscape itself.
I have an expertise in hand papermaking
and utilize my knowledge of the craft’s
traditions to create work in a contemporary
context that transforms invasive plant fibers
into works of art. This decisive material
selection lets me physically embed elements
of regional specificity and conceptual
implications into my art.
The process of collection and transformation
honors the plants as living organisms, while
simultaneously engaging and educating
viewers about the importance of invasivespecies
awareness.
Conversation
The culmination of my explorations,
observations, research, and interpretations
is an exhibition of my labors that aims to
spark conversation. I use the subversive
power of seductively beautiful objects to
draw a viewer in, resulting in questions and
a desire for further inquiry.
60 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Deconstruct/Reconstruct
Megan Singleton
Left | Megan Singleton,
Riparian Threads:
Cimarron Watershed 2017
Handmade Paper of Abaca,
Hydrilla, Prairie Grass and
Oklahoma Soil
30' X 10'.
Previous | Megan
Singleton, Fluvial Terra
(Installation View)
Below | Megan Singleton,
Riparian Threads (detail)
The intent of my work is to create an
overlapping dialogue between art, science,
and ecological concerns corresponding
to both the alchemical processes I use to
create art, and to the idea that exploration
and collaboration can lead to new
perceptions of our landscape and land
stewardship. In addition, I hope that my
work inspires individuals to embark on their
own explorations into the wilderness, to be
out finding beauty.
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62 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
IN THE PINES:
Mapping the Longleaf
Anne Janine Lindberg
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
Green Painting 2014 Oil on
canvas 46” X 35”
Anne Lindberg grew up in the suburbs of
Chicago and is currently a visual artist living
and working in Wilmington, North Carolina. A
painter primarily, Anne has exhibited in Chicago
and St. Louis at galleries and museums including
the Des Lee Gallery in St. Louis, the Foundry Art
Center in St. Louis, and the Kemper Museum of
Contemporary Art in St. Louis. Anne is currently
a full time faculty member at the University of
North Carolina Wilmington. She holds a Master’s
Degree in Visual Art from the Sam Fox School
at Washington University in St. Louis and a
Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of Illinois
Champaign-Urbana.
www.annejlindberg.com
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
Having moved from the Midwestern United
States to the southeastern United States
in 2013, this work was inspired by my
experience of coming to a new place trying
to get a sense of it. I focus on the longleaf
pine ecosystem, a rich forest type that once
dominated the entire southeastern United
States. I present the forest, or the idea of the
forest, through a mixture of representational
imagery and imagery that represents
information: species distribution maps, maps
of turpentine distilleries at the turn of the
century, hexagonal grid mapping techniques,
etc. The title of these collection of works, in
the pines, refers to the title of a traditional
southern Appalachian folk song from the
1870’s.
The longleaf pine forest is important and
distinctive.
Once the most extensive woodland ecosystem
in the United States, the longleaf pine forest
extended from Virginia to eastern Texas.
It has contributed to the economic and cultural
development of the United States and has
suffered extreme loss as a result.
As of 1996 only 2.95 of the original 92 million
acres remain, mostly in fragments.
Anne Janine Lindberg
Greenswamp Pinecone (burnt), 2014. Oil on linen 10” X 15”
64 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
Anne Janine Lindberg (top to bottom)
Remnants, 2015. Gouache on paper, 22” X 29 ¾”; GIS Drawing 2, 2015. Graphite on paper 26 1/4” X 40 ¼”
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
The longleaf pine forest is also
one of the most biologically
diverse ecosystems on earth with
a number of species uniquely
endemic to it, many of them
considered rare or endangered.
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg,
Broken Corridors, 2014
Mixed media on paper
30” X 44”
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
The gopher tortoise, Venus flytrap,
flameflower, Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, and other species
live solely within this ecosystem
and nowhere else on earth.
These and other endemic species
indicate not only the biological
diversity, but also the biological
uniqueness of the region.
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg,
Black Hexagons, 2014
Mixed media on paper
30” X 44”
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
There are currently many efforts
underway to restore the longleaf
pine ecosystem where it still
exists.
.
Right | Anne Janine Lindberg,
Death by a Thousand cuts, 2014
Mixed media on paper
30” X 44”
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
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In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
This body of work was created
in 2015.
This work is meant to address
loss, fragmentation, and
extinction; forces that are
becoming increasingly prevalent
in our time.
Right | Anne Janine Lindberg,
Heyday, 2014
Mixed media on paper
30” X 44”
72 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
In the Pines
Anne J. Lindberg
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Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
74 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Section 3:
Descent of Man
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
Descent of Man 2013
Gouache and graphite on paper
30” X 22”
The ecological road taken downward is often the
byproduct of other good intentions. Nonetheless,
the devastation is there. These two articles map
the consequences of not paying attention to the
edges going ragged around us.
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76 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Plants and trees in urban
landscapes: the counterdesign
of non-humans
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
Left | João Miguel Diógenes
de Araújo Lima
2018
João Miguel Lima has a MSc in Sociology from
the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil, and is
a member of the Arts and Urban Micropolitics
Laboratory at the same institution. His research
on the relations of humans and non-humans in
the urban Anthropocene combines Social Sciences
and the Arts. He has explored different publishing
formats: paper, zine, photo-essay, and a short
story.
http://cargocollective.com/joaomiguellima/
Issue N o 2
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Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
Does nature need human activism to speak
and act on its behalf – or does nature have
agency? Here the intent is to address this
question by looking at urban plants. Not
trees, not forests, but weeds, the most
undesirable kind of urban plants. Walking
and roaming through urban space, one
may overlook them bursting through the
cracks on the sidewalk, between bricks on
a wall, in a gutter or even the rooftop – but
there they are. Perceived as signs of urban
decay, weeds are usually pulled out. They
are not ‘supposed to be’ there. Weeds and
their urban counter-design has become the
subject of photographers all around the
world. Inspired by ecological criticism, this
research takes shape as an online museum
of the ephemeral, contributing with insights
about the environment in cities.
Thoreau argued that, even though cities had
pushed wilderness away to places where it
could only be visited and contemplated, man
is an inhabitant of nature nonetheless, and
thereby remains a part of it.
Cities then, are not ‘unnatural environments’
(Spirn 1996), but are transformations and
restrictions of nature by men.
This narrative begins with reflections
that question my own experience in
environmental activism.
In 2013, the municipal administration
of Fortaleza, Brazil launched an urban
intervention project to alleviate traffic jams
by constructing roadway bypasses. To make
room for the bypasses, 94 trees of the
neighboring Cocó Ecological Park would be
cut down.
When workers cut a couple of trees to the
ground, a group of demonstrators managed
to halt the process, access the site and throw
red paint over the tree stumps.
Right | A portion of the
municipality of Fortaleza,
capital of the state of Ceará, in
Northeastern Brazil, with the
green mangroves of the Cocó
River. The highlighted area
indicates where the overpasses
were built, in a junction.
Captured using Google Maps
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Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
Photographs of this action circulated online
and in different means of communication,
igniting protests 1 and shortly thereafter an
occupation 2 . These protest actions were
inspired by the Occupy movements. They
took place in the midst of the 2013 protests
in Brazil, known as the June Journeys 3 .
Red paint, intended to resemble blood,
was meant to produce a physical sense of
familiarity in humans for trees. I wondered
then: must trees be seen as humans (or
animals) in order to be protected? In this
anthropocentric appeal, does nature need
human activism to speak and act on its
behalf, contesting the impositions of urban
design?
In the following months, these questions
made me look all around the city for trees,
plants and vegetation, sensitive to their
presence and to their absence too. After a
while, I began photographing these beings,
particularly plants that sprout through cracks
in sidewalks and concrete, plants that grow in
the small corners of walls. Those who wander
through a city with an inattentive gaze may
not notice their presence on sidewalk edges,
on top of roofs, in sewers or between tiles,
but there they are. Sometimes weeds grow
in the company of flowers. Some weeds
may later become bushes or even trees,
unarguably making their own composition of
urban landscape.
Weeds. In Spanish (malas yerbas) and
Portuguese (ervas daninhas), they are
considered bad and creators of damage.
These plants reject the constraining designs
of urban planning, which dictate whether
existing forests, trees and plants may remain
or must grow in places separated from built
environments - sometimes even fenced off
by humans. Weeds, either native or nonnative
species, tend to make their presence
rather ‘inappropriately’ in cities. Similar to
Left | This aerial view dates back
to 2013, before construction work
began on the bypasses.
Captured using Google Maps
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Plants and trees in urban landscapes
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João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
The two bypasses, and the Cocó Park today, 2018
a squatter, they defy land use and ‘occupy’
cities, demonstrating not only the fertility
of the land beneath, but also the vitality of
plants.
In this sense, plants that occupy cities can’t
merely be called ‘weeds’. These spontaneous
urban plants are instead more appropriately
titled ocupadeiras. It is a Portuguese word
I made up, combining the verb ocupar
(occupy) and the noun trepadeiras (climbing
plants, that lean on other plants and
structures in order to grow). For a similar
term in English, I first considered ‘occuplants.’
Then I thought perhaps ‘squatter’ plants
would aggregate an explicit political
dimension of spatial subversion to these
urban creatures.
Ocupadeiras make us believe there is
a non-human way of activism, silently
engaged by plants. This may be a proposal
based in fiction, but they indeed occupy
both the physical urban spaces and the
imaginary human spaces of the mind. Cities
can accommodate nature willingly or with
obstinacy, in a relationship where nature’s
agency is always looking for ways to burst
into an urban landscape. As I became more
aware of these plants, they engendered a
political and poetic shift in my own ways
of human activism: instead of focusing on
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Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
reaction and deforestation, I shifted towards
life that sprouts, vibrates, exists, resists.
Open green spaces in cities, such as parks,
vacant lots and community gardens have
been the subject of many studies. Nature
conveys feelings of safety, connection,
pleasure and well-being, urging the
emergence of biophilic design, as argued
by Kellert, Heerwagen and Mador (2008).
Svendsen (2009) understands that urban
stewardship, the act of taking care of these
spaces, is a means of improving the health
and well-being of people.
Weeds, on the other hand, tend to occupy,
spread, commute and re-design urban
landscapes laid waste by humans, taking over
the concrete through its cracks. Perceived
as signs of abandonment and urban decay,
these plants are frequently cut and pulled
out. They were not meant to be there,
because they were not ‘designed to be’ there.
But it seems that news did not reach all plant
species. Ocupadeiras create a silent existence
with the built physical structures of cities,
particularly in warmer temperatures.
photographs by friends as contributions
to this visual archive. Publishing these
photographs on Instagram with the hashtag
#ocupadeiras automatically created a
gallery. Exploring the social media platform
Instagram, I came across several profiles
and tags dedicated to sharing photographs
of weeds, creating narratives of a natural
world moving through the human design
of urban landscapes. The tags #botanarchy
[botanical anarchy], #NatureTakesOver and
#CantStopNature, to name a few, are nodes
of a larger web of perceptions that assemble
and enmesh plants and humans, nature and
the constructions of humans in cities all over
the planet. In these photographs, weeds
speak through their own existence. Although
a common target of eradication by municipal
departments, these plants overcome dire
conditions, show resilience, and require few
resources.
Challenging human design, they present
hybrid landscapes, criticizing – time and
again – the ‘guards of the border’ of
modernity (Silveira 2009), which separate
and compartmentalize for the sake of ‘purity’
(Latour 1993). The weeds instead argue for
their right and intent to have their place in
urban space.
I started photographing ‘ocupadeiras’ in the
city of Fortaleza, Brazil, and also received
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima, 2017
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João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima, 2018
Some of these photos, and their captions,
create visual poems that pay homage to
nature’s agency, such as the profile @
irrefreaveis (Portuguese for ‘unstoppable’),
managed by Brazilian designer Paula Tabosa,
with photographs mostly from the city of João
Pessoa, Brazil. The profile @PlantsOfBabylon
is maintained by Frenchman François
Decobecq, known as Joas, who posts his own
photographs of these ‘plants of Babylon’, and
also reposts photographs by other users,
tagged with #plantsofbabylon. Providing a
more scientific take with plant identification,
the profile @ConcreteBotany, based in
Philadelphia, is managed by a team of plant
‘spotters’ and an Entomology specialist. Each
of these profiles and hashtags create their
own galleries of photographs of weeds.
This act of photographing and sharing
photographs gradually turned into a research
process for me. On Instagram, using a
hashtag allows the creation of a gallery of
shared photographs, making it easy to access
all images published with that same tag.
Hashtags also enable mapping other profiles
and hashtags dedicated to weeds around
the world, as well mutual recognition with
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João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
them. I also came across projects with an
online presence outside Instagram, such as
Vida Baldia, a 2011 photographic initiative by
Fortaleza-based biologist Pablo Pessoa, and
Ervas sp by artist Laura Lydia, who created
a set of artistic paintings and a map of plant
identification of weeds in areas of the city of
São Paulo, Brazil, in 2014.
Weeds are apparently ephemeral on the
surface and rather perennial underneath.
Resurgent, consistently ‘annoying,’ their
existence is extended through photographs.
If a human is likely to approach a plant with
the purpose of removing it, the photographer
is a human who appreciates these forms
of life, demonstrating a different attitude
towards them, a different perception of
urban space. Trying to combine the gallery
of photographs and the archive of profiles,
hashtags and projects, thus came into
existence the Collaborative Museum of
Ocupadeiras 4 .
analyzed from within through the practice
of curating, bringing together pieces and
looking for connections between them, and
trying to make sense of the world.
Going through these photographs of weeds
– considering both the collection I created
and all the other collections – our aim is to
re-think the relations between humans and
non-humans in the daily design of urban
landscapes.
In pragmatic terms, maybe nature needs
human activism to speak and act on its
behalf, for instance, against real estate
speculation. But humans, we need nature
for our agency, and this acknowledgement
has been made in recent years in several
areas of expertise, particularly through the
transdisciplinary approach of ecological
criticism. In the field of urban design, this
The notion of Museum is often that of
a repository, a storage facility for old
objects. But museums have become much
more dynamic, ranging from cutting-edge
interactive technology to social memory. On
this, the wide reception of Graham Black’s
critique (2005) on the need to transform
museums for the 21st century as spaces
of engagement with visitors, through
interaction and new technologies, stands
out. Furthermore, anthropologist Nicholas
Thomas (2010) proposed to understand
museums not as mere archives, but rather as
a research method: a place where complex
webs of meaning can be perceived and
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima, 2017
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João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
Ocupadeiras make us
believe there is a nonhuman
way of activism,
silently engaged by
plants.
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João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
critique enables an attempt to understand
and go beyond the worldview in which
ocupadeiras are perceived as undesired
urban creatures. As argued by Latour (1993),
modernity has taught us to avoid whatever
is messy. And weeds frequently expose
messiness, growing through the cracks in the
concrete as they like to do.
The counter-design of weeds can be a
reminder of life underground, and all around
us. Timothy Morton (2017: 2), commenting on
ecological criticism and the need to change
our current images of nature, said that a
new worldview “means dealing with how
humans experience their place in the world.
Aesthetics thus performs a crucial role,
establishing ways of feeling and perceiving
this place.”
We hope, therefore, that our museum of
ocupadeiras, and all the other galleries of
weeds, may contribute to changing such
images, instigating urban planners – and
urban humans in general – to perceive and
question their place in the world.
Endnotes
1 Earlier in 2013, the global wave of Occupy movements
had taken an ecological turn with the demonstrations in
Istanbul to protest an urban development plan backed
by the government to cut down trees of the Gezi Park,
replacing it with a shopping mall and a residential building.
Similar issues usually ignited local demonstrations, such
as the collective No a la tala de árboles (Spanish for ‘Don't
cut down trees’), which held a symbolic funeral in 2016 in
the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, to protest the practice of
cutting trees down for construction works and building
reforms.
Fortaleza, read: https://globalvoices.org/2013/09/01/
brazils-occupy-coco-park-fights-to-save-nature-reservefrom-construction/
3 For an overview of the protests in Brazil, read: https://
globalvoices.org/2013/06/17/video-vinegar-revolt-bus-fareprotests-spread-across-brazil/
4 https://cargocollective.com/joaomiguellima/Museu-
Colaborativo-das-Collaborative-Museum-of-das-
Ocupadeiras
References
Black, G. (2005) The Engaging Museum: Developing Museums
for Visitor Involvement. Psychology Press.
Kellert, S.R.; J.H. Heerwagen; M. Mador. (2008). Biophilic
design: Theory, science, and practice. New York: Wiley.
“Floods and The Chamizal Issue” National Park Service,
February 24 2015, https://www.nps.gov/cham/learn/
historyculture/rio-grand-floods-and-the-chamizal-issue.
htm, Accessed on May 13th 2018
Morton, T. (2017). Ecology without Nature: Rethinking
Environmental Aesthetics. Harvard University Press.
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Silveira, P. (2009). Híbridos na paisagem: uma etnografia
de espaços de produção e de conservação. Ambiente &
sociedade. Campinas, 12 (1), jan-jun, 83-98. Retrieved from
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/asoc/v12n1/v12n1a07.pdf
Spirn, A. W. (1996) Constructing nature: the legacy of Frederick
Law Olmsted. William Cronon (Ed.). Uncommon ground:
rethinking the human place in nature. New York; London,
91-113.
Svendsen, E. S. (2009) “Cultivating resilience: urban
stewardship as a means to improving health and wellbeing”.
Campbell, Lindsay; Wiesen, Anne (Eds.). Restorative
commons: creating health and well-being through urban
landscapes. Newtown Square, EUA: USDA Forest Service,
59 – 85.
Thoreau, H. D. (1862). “Walking”. The Atlantic Monthly, A
Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics. Boston: Ticknor
and Fields. 657-674, June.
2 For details on the occupation movement, the political
dispute and the Police intervention at the Cocó Park in
Thomas, N. (2010). Commentary: The Museum as Method.
Museum Anthropology, 33 (1), 6-10.
Issue N o 2
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86 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
Left | Caroline Clerc
All indifferent decay,
inclination, 2017
Archival inkjet print
40 x 35 inches
Caroline Clerc is a Los Angeles based artist
working in photography. Her work posits
landscapes as complex sites of recognition
and cultural construction. She is faculty at the
University of Southern California Roski School of
Art and Design and her work has been exhibited
in Los Angeles and nationally. Artist residencies
include Obracadobra, Oaxaca, Mexico; Millay
Colony for the Arts, New York; the Nordic Artists’
Centre Dale, Norway; ‘Nature, Art and Habitat’
Taleggio Valley, Italy; Taft-Nicholson Center
for Environmental Studies, University of Utah,
Montana; and Caetani Cultural Centre/Allan
Brooks Nature Centre Artist Residency, Canada.
www.carolineclerc.org
Issue N o 2
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All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
All indifferent decay, contrasts images of
sweeping vistas with interior imploded
landscapes.
This work does not offer a vantage point
upon which to survey the landscape; multiple
views of the mountains that circled the valley
are collapsed into single images.
These images mirrored my experiences
navigating a secluded valley in Montana.
Navigating unmarked forest interiors
resulted in images that visually progress from
restrained romanticism to increased chaos,
and embody anxieties about the long-term
stability of natural spaces.
My work addresses landscape
representation.
The work problematizes the act of looking
and disrupts the idea of understanding one’s
relationship to the environment, or to nature.
Initially, the scenes appear as static or
tranquil, but they are not what they seem,
and they are not what they should be.
88 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
Caroline Clerc
All indifferent decay, approach, 2017
Archival inkjet print, 40 x 40 inches
Issue N o 2
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All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
My work begins with the intention of
taking a sustained walk within the natural
environment, and I rely on maps to
determine a potential route.
Once the walk begins, planning ends, and
there is only the experience of wandering,
making images along the way.
When I return to the studio, these images are
composited via digital methodologies into a
single photograph.
In constructing the final photographs I seek
to reference complex representational
histories found in 19th century, within the
traditions of landscape art painting and
survey photography.
I am interested in exploring the landscape
as a complex site of recognition and cultural
construction.
I am interested in subverting order through
wandering and reconfiguring, and to
confound the traditional subject/object
relationship by moving beyond a single
viewpoint to present multiple perspectives.
90 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
Caroline Clerc
All indifferent decay, ebb, 2017
Archival inkjet print, 35 x 38 inches
Issue N o 2
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All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
In this work, looking, seeing, and
understanding are not constants, indeed they
are constantly shifting.
The images are at once a place and no place.
92 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
All Indifferent Decay
Caroline Clerc
Caroline Clerc
All indifferent decay, continuation, 2017
Archival inkjet print, 36 x 38 inches
Issue N o 2
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Mapping for Social Change
Annita Lucchesi
94 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Section 4:
Regenesis
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
R e g e n e s i s 2 0 1 3
Gouache and graphite on paper
30” X 22”
However, choosing to see a problem in an ecology,
and acting with a map of its resolution may
help the rest of us what to see, and then act. The
following articles argue that better incarnations
are not only possible, but do-able, not only for
the problem at hand, but for the hidden within
ourselves.
Issue N o 2
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96 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Homes
MJ Tyson
Left | MJ Tyson
Homes, 2017
Installation view
Following | MJ Tyson
Homes, 2017
Installation view
MJ Tyson is an artist and teacher based in
Hoboken, New Jersey. Tyson’s work is centered
on the relationship between people and their
possessions. Interests in value and material
culture have led her to draw from the worlds
of art appraisal and museum conservation.
Her recent solo show at Brooklyn Metal Works,
The Last Objects, focuses on destruction as a
creative force and the transformation of personal
objects. Tyson received her BFA from the Jewelry +
Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island School
of Design in 2008 and returned to earn her MFA
in 2017. She has been an artist in residence at the
Studios at Mass MoCA, Vermont Studio Center,
and the Wormfarm Institute.
www.mjtyson.com
Issue N o 2
97
Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
98 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Plants and trees in urban landscapes
João Miguel Diógenes de Araújo Lima
Issue N o 2
99
Homes
MJ Tyson
All material carries a past, and whether we
acknowledge this lineage or not, it exists.
It may be to our advantage — as a way
of orienting ourselves in our world —
to consider the cycles of creation and
destruction intrinsic to the objects and
materials that surround us.
Within the form of these vessels, the
materials express and interact. They teach
that there is no need to draw hard lines
between categories or between objects.
This series of vessels, Homes, explores the
reincarnation of personal objects through
material transformation.
Right | MJ Tyson
36 Orchard Hill Drive, 2017
11" x 6" x 5"
Personal objects left behind
by the deceased residents of
36 Orchard Hill Drive
100 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Homes
MJ Tyson
Issue N o 2 101
Homes
MJ Tyson
102 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Homes
MJ Tyson
Homes are extensions of, and memorials to,
the lives that brought them together.
Each vessel is made from objects left behind
by the deceased residents of one home, and
is named for the address of that home.
Now they're new objects, with evidence of
multiple states.
Suspended in decay and transition; in
growth; in both.
Left | MJ Tyson
35 Norman Avenue, 2017
13" x 6" x 5"
Personal objects left behind
by the deceased residents of
35 Norman Avenue
Issue N o 2 103
Homes
MJ Tyson
Each of these vessels is made from the
personal objects in one home,
left behind after the owner had died. Each is
named for its address of origin.
Each one is a place. Collectively, they’re a city,
a community,
living and dying just like those that brought
them together.
Right | MJ Tyson
145 Delmage Road, 2017
12.5" x 7" x 5"
Personal objects left behind
by the deceased residents of
145 Delmage Road
104 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Homes
MJ Tyson
Issue N o 2 105
106 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
When accessibility is
thought of as only
meeting the requirements
of the Code, we are
unnecessarily limiting
our creative capacity.
Placing Inclusion
Ahead
Ileana Rodríguez
Left | Ileana Rodríguez
An accessible route provides a safe
egress to anyone. It was decided this
route would be used as the inclusive
means of egress, besides providing the
Code’s requisite stairs. The ramp quickly
became a celebrated architectural
element of the building.
Ileana Rodríguez studied Architecture at Florida
International University in Miami. She is a
former swimmer with Team USA Paralympics
who competed at the 2012 London Paralympic
Games among other venues. Currently she is an
accessibility specialist working with organizations,
designers and architects to create inclusive spaces
around the world.
Issue N o 2 107
Borders Studio
Ane Gonzalez Lara
108 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Placing Inclusion Ahead
Ileana Rodríguez
What if design was strong enough to awaken
people’s awareness of others’ uniqueness,
as well as how all are served by such a
design? Too often, the product of design,
constrained by time and attitude, sets
bounds on what we - the users of the design
product - can or cannot do. Just take a look
at the images and sketches that accompany
this essay. One of the scenarios shows the
consequence of design, limited. The other
shows design expanded to empower all users
thereby celebrating the people and the place
enveloped by it.
Providing accessibility into, through, and
from spaces is many times approached as
a joyless chore rather than as an exciting
design opportunity.
The book of laws - the Code - is considered
the limiter of creativity rather than the
impetus/starter of it. The Code’s contents
are seen only as a series of parameters that
designers must follow.
rigidly set designs, does not necessarily result
in an accessible building.
Besides, with such a narrow design
viewpoint, what else could the consequent
product be, but a weak effort that may not
achieve its intended function of accessibility?
Such an attitude leads to restrictive spaces
that cannot enable good human interaction.
When accessibility is thought of as only
meeting the requirements of the Code,
we are unnecessarily limiting our creative
capacity. The Code does not demand
forgetting about the design opportunities
found in the diversity of the users, or of
creating inclusive spaces. Rather, the Code
should expect the creative soul that chooses
to pursue design to see the rules as aids
toward a successful, fully-functioning end
product. The images that accompany this
essay portray the impact of an accessible
design effort that did not achieve accessibility
versus one that is not only accessible but
inclusive.
By adding up, without much thought, a series
of formulas, and then plunking them down as
Inclusion is easy to accomplish if it is
recognized as requisite to the design concept
Left | Ileana Rodríguez
This ramp’s design did not take all differentlyabled
users into consideration. As a result, the
ramp itself has obstacles and cannot serve its
purpose of providing access.
Issue N o 2 109
Placing Inclusion Ahead
Ileana Rodríguez
Above | An accessible route provides a safe egress to anyone. It was decided this route would be used as the inclusive means of
egress, besides providing the Code’s requisite stairs. The ramp quickly became a celebrated architectural element of the building.
110 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
Placing Inclusion Ahead
Ileana Rodríguez
and acknowledged throughout the entire
project’s development and execution. What
happens when we look at design through a
lens having too narrow of a focus? Where
we only yawn when we see, and then
ploddingly follow, the rules and regulations
for our building? The result is a lost design
opportunity that serves, at best, a few
people. It becomes a place where diversity is
not found.
level. Design can drive inclusion and change
perceptions. I perceive inclusion as an
attitude, a state of the mind that is made
manifest only with the right effort of melding
creativity with rules. Design, when looked at
through the lens of inclusion, has the power
to change the attitudes of people, from the
individual level to the wider community.
I urge you to put and hold in your minds the
possibilities of what can be accomplished
when design is the all-inclusive bridge that
brings people and abilities to the same
Issue N o 2 111
112 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
Left | Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
The Dreams of a Greater Countries, 2016
Color Photography on fine art paper
134x112 (cm)
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti has contributed to the
development of the media arts through his artistic
and research practices at noted international
institutions in Austria, Brazil, Canada, China,
Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France,
Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan,
Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Singapore,
Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri
Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine,
United Kingdom and United States of America.
He graduated in 1996 from the Department of
Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University
and Master of Arts in Fine Arts with Major Art
in Public Spheres (MAPS), Lucerne University of
Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland in 2016.
Since 1999, he has been working as a full time
contemporary artist.
www.chutiwongpeti.info
Issue N o 2 113
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
My artwork focuses on
personal and larger
issues of cultural
transformation related to
global mobility, and the
precarious situation of
the neo-nomadic artist.
114 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti One to Another, Installation View, 2016
My artwork focuses on personal and larger
issues of cultural transformation related to
global mobility, and the precarious situation
of the neo-nomadic artist.
I work in the realm of contemporary art and
am interested in revealing the unexplored
facets of experience.
Living in Littau, yet often shopping in Emmen
for the ingredients to prepare traditional
Thai meals, I incorporate packaging in my
installation.
I am directing my energies toward the
exploration of the phenomena of crossdisciplinary
art and culture.
They are mainly from food products that
I have consumed over the past eighteen
months since coming from Thailand to live in
Lucerne.
I am searching for answers that can help
reverse the subordination and objective
materialism that are prevalent in today’s
society.
What are the thoughts, doubts, fears,
uncertainties, and reflections that we have
and experience as we head toward the new
material and immaterial territories, which we
Issue N o 2 115
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
.
Right | Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
One to Another
Performance, 2016
116 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
are to inhabit in the future generations?
Featuring logos, brand names, and sources
of origin, the artwork represents and
symbolizes how things and people come
together from around the world to be
recombined at one new location.
The context and significance of the artwork
is, first of all, highly personal, a means for
me to make connections between my native
country and background, and my present
situation.
The subject of the artwork, however, also
touches upon more general issues related
Issue N o 2 117
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
Right | Sarawut Chutiwongpeti,
One to Another
Installation View, 2016
118 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
One to Another
Sarawut Chutiwongpeti
to contemporary global mobility, everyday
aesthetics and routines, and is thereby
significant in terms of cultural transformation
and the challenges of living and surviving
faced by a neo-nomadic artist.
distribution of information and foster a
profound universality in human nature and
cross-cultural and critical collaboration.
I am especially interested in finding out
how contemporary art can enhance the
Issue N o 2 119
Mapping Meaning, The Journal
Conclusion
Left | Anne Janine Lindberg
Based on installation view, 2013
Following | Anne Janine Lindberg
Based on installation view, 2013
Mapping is always first a journey into oneself, a
place one may, or may not want to go.
The exploration and consequent analysis require
courage to attempt, and to continue struggling
with, seemingly interminably.
Once one’s walk with keen awareness has begun,
other ways and paths present themselves. They
cannot be left alone, unanswered.
This issue is as much a presentation of others’
mappings, as it is a call for yours.
Begin.
Issue N o 2 121
122 Mapping Meaning, the Journal
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