Process: Mapmaking & slippage

Cartography is the art and science of making maps while topography means ‘to describe a place’. It is the art or practice of detailed graphic delineation, usually on maps or charts, of natural and man-made features of a place or region. I wanted to counter the scientific maps made using the GPS — which use exact coordinates — with illogical memories and hand-drawn ‘memory maps’ that may not refer to proper scale and distance as much as symbolism, metaphor and just plain superstition.

This is why the lake — the body of water — is an important concept in this project. To be able to define the exact coordinates of water is difficult due to its receding and growing edges, its fluid nature, its relationship to time and weather.

If several individuals were told to pinpoint a specific lake, to determine the latitude and longitude coordinates using a GPS, the coordinates would vary depending on the amount or rainfall that year, the season, their position in relation to the lake, etc. There would be slippage in the collection of data. With a tool like a GPS that is so incredibly complex and precise, I enjoy the fact that a lake or river can elude it somewhat. It can also escape from its simple classification as a physical object.

A lake is a symbolic marker, embedded with history, stories and memories of people living in the area. It is never simply a lake. And so, I will not be the objective surveyor, nor will I follow an empirical method when documenting these lakes.

I am interested in chance elements that lead me to the unexpected, the tall tale, the ordinary and the magical, the stories which not only describe bodies of water but the people living in the vicinity.