Map like an artist - a research-creation toolkit for understanding place

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a push to design urban infrastructures that are inclusive to equity-deserving communities in recognition that cities can perform as accessories to social marginalization and reflect exclusionary policies.

This paper addresses how creative methodologies can operationalize community-engaged research by centring on the lived experience of individuals and reframing infrastructure through the lens of equity and justice. In geography, academic attention has been provided to understanding community geographies, which seek to develop co-produced and mutually beneficial knowledge through a recursive process of problem definition in order to facilitate social action (Shannon et al., 2020).

While including communities in design, implementation, and evaluation can lead to deeper and more nuanced forms of understanding and more culturally congruent and sustainable solutions to improve the community (Irby et al., 2021), creative methodologies designed to serve spatial research can fall short when measured according to the parameters of their disciplines.

This paper seeks to provide methodological tools that center community assets and knowledge by engaging members of the public in the production of media art. The paper will include a discussion of ‘Borderline’, a mobile app that uses sound to identify, annotate and map invisible boundaries that affect social and economic mobility in urban spaces.

Using this work as a case study, we will use recent iterations of the project to provide insights into how artistic research can illuminate social change in cities, engage audiences from different socioeconomic groups and generate new insights into understanding place.