Inform-art-ive

Maps: Informative or inform-art-ive?

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Art is a passage, a pathway, and a route from one mind’s eye to another’s soul. It is a threshold. It is a geography of meaning. It maps a journey from one point to another point.

Cartographic maps have been a vital structure in civilisations since the 6th Century BC when the Greek philosopher Anaximander composed the world’s first maps, which acted merely as tools for presenting Anaximander’s travel knowledge (Mark, 2009). For Australia, 18th century British colonialism brought Captain Cook and with him the nation’s first official maps. These maps, which were taken back to Britain, informed that country of the geographic details about newly found Australia (Sanders, n.d.). Before colonisation, there were no authoritative physical maps, however there were many signs of early map making; Indigenous Australians hunted and occupied specific zones of land and sacred sites were recognised and protected. Although these customs were not recognised as mapping themselves, they did show the need for acknowledgement of geographic places, which Captain Cook practised more authoritatively when making maps of Australia.

In our time, the boundaries of mapping and art are frequently blurred, creating a whole new genre—artistic mapping—which adds to the more recognised list of topographic, road, economic, political and social maps. Artistic maps are ones in which geographical information comes second to aesthetics and artistic ideas. Two examples of this ‘genre’ were displayed at the Gallery of Modern Art’s (GOMA’s) largest exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contemporary works to date, ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home; Contemporary Art from Black Australia’. Curated by Bruce McLean, the Gallery dedicated seventy percent of its terrain to the exhibition. The exhibition investigated how Australian history, politics... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Megan Cope, Fluid Terrain (installation view), 2012. Vinyl on glass, Site-specific commission for ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2012. Photograph Mark Sherwood, QAGOMA. © Megan Cope.

Wakartu Cory Surprise, Mimpi, 2011. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 119.5 x 239cm. Purchased 2012. Queensland Art Gallery. Collection Queensland Art Gallery. © Cory Surprise/Licensed by Viscopy, 2014.