Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

Can we Talk About Cartography Without Borders?

The paper deals with the realm of geographic cartography in an attempt to discuss new perceptions of spatial organization and how they are used to mark borders. It relates to various practices of mapping, some traditional and others based on the new possibilities posed by novel technologies for gathering, organizing and presenting spatial knowledge. It examines the approaches created by a political reading of mapping by mechanisms of revealing and concealing: whether by exposure of an existing political reality or as an invitation to action based on comprehension enabled by the very act of mapping. It refers to the ways the design of geographical maps condition the interpretation systems derived from them and how the act of mapping itself influences the reorganization of the mapped space. In this framework, the paper proposes viewing the various phases of mapping as a political act which, in certain cases, “acts against itself”, or in other words, undermines the act of mapping itself.
The text investigates the new meanings of the concept of border and the act of border marking in the new phases of cartography. This exploration is based on three concepts of motion in space which do not constitute separate categories but rather different prisms with which we may view this act: zooming, displacement and assimilation.