Creative Cartography: Art and Science, Culture and Nature

Students will learn how maps and map-making have always existed in a contentious position between art and science, and between culture and nature. The course will combine discussions of readings on critical cartography, data visualization, and Historical GIS (HGIS) with hands-on tutorials using ArcGIS, Adobe Illustrator, and analog drawing. Labs and final projects will emphasize how the form of a map (and all its inherent presumptions of accuracy, reality, and precision) can be manipulated to make art that tells new stories about people, places and things that run counter to dominant narratives. Prior experience with vector-based design software and/or GIS is recommended, but not required.