Cartographica Sculpted Map Photography

These images seek to draw attention to individual human lives, lives that we are unable to see when we look at a map. 

Cartographica is a series of photographs of sculpted maps that draws attention to individual human lives, the lives we can't see when we look at a map. The works are about people and their lands, and people and their countries.

Each piece begins by identifying a nation facing distressing issues such as environmental destruction, human rights violations, gender inequality, political upheaval or war. I explore these geopolitical issues by making sculptural forms from maps, tearing, twisting, cutting, crumpling and reshaping the maps. These sculpted geographies become embodiments of what each territory endures, and of my attempt to imagine the emotions and hardships its people may be facing.

The final artwork is the photograph I make of each reconstituted map. It returns the map to its original two-dimensional form, but subverted: no longer a neutral picture of territory, but a record of the lives within it.