I’ve been writing about exploration this week: not simply of landscapes, but of ideas. And of the ways that we create maps.
In our day to day, we rely on maps to get us to places, to hold a certain truth. But the flip side of this is that there is space in a map to get lost. Indeed, we can create maps that are intended to get us lost, if they are maps of curiosity, uncertainty, or the future.
This act of map making, of cartography, is valuable, especially when you consider the same map over time: in my own work i have drawn and redrawn the map of the Social Age many times, over a number of years, and going back allows me to spot which landmarks loom large, and persist over time (like mountains looming in the distance), and which recede out of sight.
In this sense, map making is a mechanism of prototyping and sense making.
If you drew a map, what would it look like?
A map of your curiosity, or certainty, your beliefs or hopes?
Would it hold your certainty, or an opportunity?
With best wishes
Julian
Maps