DRAWING CARTOGRAPHIES OF PERCEPTION Prespa Walking Arts Encounters 2025
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This walkshop was initially developed for and first implemented as a part of the proceedings of the International Prespa Walking Arts Encounters 2025 (WAC 25) Walking Home / Walking in Transition.
This walkshop engages participants in a collaborative exploration of subjective navigation, perception, and cartography. Through walking and drawing, it examines how individuals interpret and navigate shared spaces, revealing the multiplicity of ways in which the world is perceived and mapped.
Participants will work in pairs, beginning from a central location and setting off alone to create hand-drawn maps of their journeys toward personally significant destinations. These maps—devoid of text—will emphasize visual and spatial observation, encouraging communication through imagery. Upon returning, partners exchange maps and retrace the other’s journey, interpreting and documenting the significance of the chosen destination through drawing. The final gathering fosters reflection on differences and overlaps in perception, orientation, and meaning.
Rooted in conceptual precedents such as Ben Buckland’s reliance on stranger-drawn maps and Nobutaka Aozaki’s composite mapping of Manhattan, this walkshop builds on past projects that explore navigation through exchange. It also extends research developed in TRACE, a collaborative project with Scottish artist Deirdre Macleod, which investigated remote connection through mapping acts of close looking.
This participatory process highlights the biases and subjectivities inherent in spatial awareness and communication. By shifting from text-based direction-following to visually driven navigation, the exercise foregrounds interpretation, misalignment, and discovery. The walkshop ultimately reflects the concept of the pluriverse, where multiple realities coexist within the same physical environment, emphasizing the layered and diverse ways people make sense of the world.