Perceptions of Place: Ephemeral Mapping through Creative Practice

This interdisciplinary research takes a practice-led approach to mapping the ephemeral nature of perceptions of place. Perception of place is a complex and evolving relationship between the self and the environment; it is in a constant state of flux, shaped by time, experience, memories and feelings. The transient nature of these influences can challenge most conventional cartographic methods which often work within a functionalist and objectivist framework. Owing to their specialised objectives, many maps prioritise abstracted, fixed, representations of a place, often overlooking characteristics of the human experience of place, and struggle to capture ephemerality, such as such transience of time, emotion and differing perspectives of place. Moving beyond an objective view of mapping, I turned to post-representational cartography, which emphasises the fluid, evolving nature of spatial understanding, where maps are always in a state of becoming, remade as they are interpreted and translated. This shift in cartography embraces a subjective, process-oriented, and embodied approach to understanding place, and is conducive to generating maps that are emergent and dynamic in nature. Taking a processual and creative approach to mapping can better capture the lived experience and ephemerality of perception of place, through the making and viewing of cartographic artworks that in turn encourage engagement and reflection. My research is driven by the thinking of philosophers, psychologists and post-representational cartography, as well as the practices of artists and my experiences through my own creative practice. While artists like Julie Mehretu and Kate McLean address transience in their mapping artworks, their representations are two-dimensional, and their notion of transience becomes more of a static snapshot of a moment in time due to the two-dimensional nature and medium of these works. This led me to investigate three-dimensional, embodied and experiential engagements with place as explored by mapping artists (Susanna Castleden, Liz Hickok), experiential artists (Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor) and walking artists (Richard Long and Hamish Fulton). The work of these artists inspired me to create my own cartographic artworks which include sculptures, mobiles, large-scale photographs, projection and animations. Taking a post-representational cartographic perspective and applying it to creative mapping practices, I have developed cartographic artworks that aim to function as reflective tools, providing the viewer with a deeper engagement and understanding of place. These cartographic artworks are not static artefacts, but emerging, fluid maps, shaped through interpretation and experience. My work aligns with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, which sees perception as something lived, embodied, and continuously experienced. Hence, my approach treats mapping as a meaning-making process, reflecting the shifting, subjective, and emotional dimensions of human experience. In this research, perception of place is examined through the perspectives of cartography, design, and art. I developed an Interdisciplinary Model of Creative Practice to inform the making of cartographic artworks that explore the ephemerality of perception of place, weaving together the different disciplines’ perspectives to bring a nuanced and deep understanding of place. The initial phase of this research, Time and the Experience of Place, looked at the effects of time on perceptions of place. This early project took place in my local neighbourhood park, the Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy North, Melbourne, Australia, which I visited daily, enabling me to observe and record my changing perceptions. The park was walked and mapped over the course of a year, showing differing experiences of place over time, as evidenced in experiential notes, photographs, sketches and maps, the recording of locations (using GPS), weather and atmospheric conditions, as well as collecting found objects. I used this data to inform a series of cartographic artworks that looked at the effects of time on perceptions of place. I expanded on this research in Mapping Emotion, where I looked at the effects of emotion on perceptions of place. I created a survey that asked respondents to walk, observe, map and document the park, providing a wider data set beyond my own personal experiences. The respondents were also asked to recall memories of prior visits and to draw a memory map of the park. The information gathered from these surveys revealed that in addition to time, emotion also played an integral role in shaping perceptions of place. A series of mapping exercises were carried out to inform the development of emotion maps and the creation of novel cartographic artworks that express the effect of emotions on perceptions of place. For the final cartographic artwork series, Perspective: Framing Perceptions of Place, I expanded my study to the broader neighbourhood to explore the role of perspective on perceptions of place. This series examined how framing, viewpoint, and visual composition shape what is seen, overlooked, or emphasised in maps of place. Using the sourced photographs and tags, I undertook a series of mapping exercises that led to the development of the final cartographic artworks that explored the role of perspective on perceptions of place. This led me to conceptualise my mapping practice as a performative, reflective and iterative process, where the maps become reflective tools to communicate the ephemerality of changing perceptions of place. These cartographic artworks have been exhibited publicly and shared with the local community. Through this exploration, I identified a research gap in mapping and ephemerality, specifically in developing maps with transient qualities themselves to capture ephemeral phenomena that are difficult to express with conventional approaches. Following the post-representational understanding that maps are always in the process of becoming, my research takes a processual approach to understanding the human experience in relation to place. This research addresses a gap in the ability of cartographic practices to capture ephemerality, by exploring how alternative mapping methods can convey the fleeting and subjective nature of perceptions of place. The cartographic artworks created through this research can contribute to understanding perceptions of place by generating new and evolving perceptions and helping viewers to notice these perceptions through direct engagement with the artworks. This work contributes to the fields of cartography and creative art practice, through the development of the Interdisciplinary Model of Creative Practice, novel approaches to mapping, and offering new ways of perceiving and understanding place through engaging with cartographic artworks.