Mapping Relations: A participatory, reflective, visual exercise

Join Aditi Kini, Bloedel Reserve Creative Resident, for this unusual and engaging experience around writing and mapping.

“Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with land-surveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.” – Gilles Deleuze

Maps have defined our world: our borders, our struggles, our opportunities. They are part of every story—after all, we have to get from point A to point B somehow.

The romantic notion of the flâneur still holds sway over the imagination of the budding writer. If only we could be so free, detached, and observant as Baudelaire or Benjamin—if only we could read the streets like text. The situationist dériviste (Debord) is more unpredictable, and their movement through urban space disrupts its functional logic. Thoreau’s saunterer walks through nature unharried and unbothered, “in the spirit of undying adventure”.

But what about walking through gardens, through spaces that have been landscaped, that present a deliberate marriage between the old and the new, the tamed and the wild? In this workshop, we will map our relations to the grounds, our relations to all grounds and their histories, discuss maps and mapping, walking and talking. This exercise invites participants to pay attention to their unpredictable, unstable relations with their surroundings. Each participant will create an idiosyncratic map.

Bring journal, pen, walking shoes, water bottle, anything else you may need. Perhaps bring a map that’s important to you.

WHERE
Meet at the Arrival Garden

WHEN
July 3, 10:00 – Noon

COST
$15 for Members
$15 plus admission for Non-Members

Not a member yet? Join here