About
The
overarching goal of the Map Room project is to develop local spaces for
grassroots map-making, where people can creatively and collaboratively
explore data. Conventional digital maps can
help people see rapid, large-scale social and environmental changes,
even as they unfold. But often these maps are based on abstract data
alone and are, therefore, disconnected from the lived experiences of
their audiences. The Map Room Project aims to empower
people to understand, but also challenge and even redefine the stories
that maps and data tell about their lives, and about the places they
live.
In
the summer of 2018, initial funding from DILAC and NSF (through the
Civic Data Science program) enabled our team to build a Map Room on the
Tech campus. The Map Room has since grown into
a successful research project focused on rethinking what it means to
stage civic conversations around data: how can the seemingly mundane
details of public records become the source materials for acts of
creative and collaborative expression? Last year, in
2019, additional DILAC funding enabled us to create a new, more
versatile map-making system, which we call “Map Spot.” This system
enables temporary, pop-up map-making spaces virtually anywhere. We have
already tested the system at high schools, museums, conferences,
and design offices around the country.
Project Team: Sukhmai Kapur, Yanni Loukissas, Jude Ntabathia, Jihan Sherman, Jer Thorp, Raya Ward
