Mapping Arcadia

On the Exactitude of Science (Del rigor en la ciencia) by Jorge Luis Borges is the genesis of my current ongoing body of work and the subject of my Guggenheim proposal project. (Engl.)

This narrative, relates to the mapping of an empire and how their maps progressively grow physically in scale to embrace the whole of the land resulting in a chart on the land in scale of 1:1. Borges’ investigates the concepts of representation and critiques the value of mapping, copying or representation itself. First published in 1946, it is still pertinent within our current cultural context of electronic media in which everything is reproduced, copied and simulated. What is a map; what is to be mapped; what is its value, and what does it mean in different communities?
I am currently investigating these issues within the context of creating landscape interventions that map the topography of various sites which exam the nuance of place and environment. To date I have produced three of these projects and am planning to develop an additional three in Spain and Argentina over the next three years. Each phase of this ongoing project has taken place in contrasting eco-climates ranging from the dry desert of New Mexico to the wet bog lands of the Scottish Highlands and have therefore required a distinct set of interventions with an individualized response to the environment within the framework of the Borges text. Phase one of this project transpired in 2007at the LAND – an art-site during an artist residency near Albuquerque, New Mexico. The dry red desert floor of this location had been my canvas to draw a scaled up map of the terrain in blue powdered chalk. The Land Art-site gallery, Albuquerque New Mexico, funded this landscape intervention. This bok is a reflection on this first Mapping Arcadia project.