Editorial 

Issue 9

As I write this editorial Donald Trump has claimed victory on the 2020 presidential election, even before all the votes have been counted. America and the world is watching to see what happens next. This is amongst a backdrop of a climate crisis, a global pandemic that has so far claimed the lives of over 1.2 million deaths, recorded almost 50 million infections and ushered in an unprecedented wave of social and economic uncertainty, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which has once again refocused the call to take racism seriously as an institutionalised and everyday reality for many. To state the very obvious, we live in troubling times. 

And yet, as the contributors to Livingmaps Review Issue 9 demonstrate, those working with and writing about maps have heeded Donna Haraway’s call to stay with the trouble. They are working through the trouble presented to us, to find alternative and hopefully better futures. 

There is no strict thematic to this issue, but all of the articles work with and beyond the complex issues of precarity and uncertainty, which have come to define the current moment for many. Collectively the articles in this issue paint a picture of an artistic, activist and academic counter mapping community that is in good health. This should give us some optimism for the future, both near and far. 

In Navigations, Lucy Frears provides a reference toolkit for locative media projects that seek to make changes to how we see ourselves and others in relation to the places we live, visit and walk through. Her locative media practice shows us, and then challenges us, to use GPS technologies to augment our experiences of place in novel ways. 

In Waypoints, John Price documents his work on mapping a people’s history of the Windrush generation for the Layers of London project. By foregrounding the individual journeys and locations of the people that made the voyage to settle in the UK, John gives us a window into the details that deserve our attention if we are to avoid the all too often generalised claims made about this group of migrants. Following this, Jobbe Wijnen presents his archaeological mappings of the Büchel Peace Camp in Germany. Through his archaeological-cum-ethnographic mapping process, Jobbe demonstrates how maps can be used to make visible the spatial, and often precarious, practices of activist cultures. Rounding off Waypoints, Garry Whannel reflects on the Standford’s Map of The River Thames, describing how it became embedded in his lifeworld from an early age. What’s especially interesting about Garry’s piece is how he carefully reflects upon the map as a material and representational object that has shaped him.  

In Mapworks, Kimbal Quist Bumstead and Sol Perez-Martinez’s have brought together post-pandemic dream maps in a direct response to Covid-19. This diverse collection of maps, sent in by contributors from around the world, asks us to think about the present state of life during a pandemic through the lens of possible futures. Also in Mapworks, Harrison Cole’s Stillness Map of shipping ports in Los Angeles directs our attention to localised issues of (im)mobility in capitalist modes of production. Harrison highlights how stillness might be visualised through an innovative movement map of ships waiting to port during a clerk strike in 2012. 

In Lines of Desire, Mikey Tomkins discusses his edible mapping and walking project on the subject of sustainable food production. By outlining the process of mapping and walking with participants, he not only gives us a window in the precarious realities of participatory research (often with strangers), but he shows, like Kimbal and Sol’s post-pandemic dream maps, how mapping is a way of starting a conversation about the future and even ushering futures into being. Continuing the theme of walking and the possibilities of place during the pandemic, Andrew Howe contributes an autobiographic account of his daily walks during the first 10 weeks of lockdown in the UK. Starting out as a project to gather social and material fragments of Frankwell, Andrew soon began to map his walks through the place, which culminated in a book and an achieve of phenomenological experiences during this strange time. Finishing up Lines of Desire is Jacob Wallet’s account of a walking interview with artist, Jan Rothuizen, about his book, The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam: Hand Drawn Perspectives from Daily Life (2014). In a sprawling conversation and derive through Amsterdam, Jacob manages to capture the essence of Jan’s mapping work whilst also mapping the journey made together. The result is a fascinating document that mixes photo-essay with conversational analysis and map making. 

In Reviews, Phil Cohen and Hilary Ramsden both contribute reviews of A People’s Atlas of Detroit, offering us a well rounded perspective on this important contribution to deep and counter community mapping. Staying in the US, Garry Whannel finishes the section off with a review of Minnie Hall Wood’s book about her pioneering solo journey on foot between Washington D.C. and San Francisco in 1916.  

To end this issue, Point Nemo includes a reflective piece and interview by Phil Cohen. Drawing from personal experiences with Chris, who came to work for Phil, we are confronted with the importance of hearing the individual stories, voices and circumstances of young Black men in Britain.

Readers will recognise that Issue 9 comes in a new format integrated into the Livingmaps.org.uk website. This decision was made to bring together the two sides of the Livingmaps Network, our project work and the journal, into the same space. We hope that you find the new design a little easier to navigate and appealing to read. The old site will remain for now, but in time, we will migrate all of our back into this site. 

Mike Duggan

Editor-in-Chief, November 4th 2020