Story telling through Maps

Maps:

Every map is a silent narrator. While we often view them as cold, clinical tools for navigation or data storage, a map’s true power lies in its ability to translate the abstract into the visceral. From the hand-drawn charts of ancient explorers to the dynamic, real-time dynamic maps of the digital age, cartography has always been less about where things are and more about what things mean.

Outline:

Maps have evolved from static reference tools into dynamic intelligent layers. They carry and convey a lot of information about the world we live in, the environment around us, the complex socio-economic systems and every other subject that we care about. Maps are widely used in governance, planning, and other decision-making processes.  

In the modern era, Maps are no longer used by geographic experts or professionals but almost everyone – citizens who want to know about their environment, enthusiasts who want to know about the topography of their places, decision makers who want to know the areas that they need to prioritize for an action, legislators who want to drive policy, and even foodies who want to get food at their door step. Gone are the days where maps were limited to a smaller audience and it has now entered the daily lives of almost everyone. With the advent of modern tools such as GIS, Remote Sensing, AI and many others, it has become easier to create maps.

In this context, the question is how do we use Maps to tell powerful stories? The session would focus on the speaker’s experiences with generating the content, creating the maps, the nuances behind them, and how they have been used or perceived by people. It would allow the audience to explore the world of maps and the little things that make up that world. The speaker would walk through some of the stories that were created and may be some fun background stories as well! The session would also have some small exercises where the audience would draw some simple maps related to their daily life with a pencil and some papers. This activity would allow them to think spatially and create a perspective around map generation and how they can be effectively used in storytelling.

Format: Talk (Primarily Narrative with two 5-minute exercises) Requirements: A Pencil / Pen and some papers for free hand drawing of maps. Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour