Mapping Un-Captivity

Abstract

The maps presented here are part of my student project titled “Instructions for un-captivity” (2016-2017) completed on the basis of the first-year studio “Introduction to Architecture 1” at the University of Thessaly. For this specific exercise of mapping, each student had to choose a subject from the city of Volos and an object useful to the subject in order to observe and investigate them, assuming the role of “a detective, an archeologist, or an urban anthropologist” (Lycourioti,2012). The aim of the research would be the production of five maps from each student, each map with a specified title presented below. These maps would allow us a view to the city as “a net of spaces intertwined around the production of the object and the habits regarding its use” (Lycourioti,2012).

This exercise became a great stimulus for an original way to become familiar with the -unknown to me back then- city of Volos and its people. Also, it became a way to re-discover the map as a representation tool which can render a variety of notions, data and stories behind them -spatial, historical, poetic- escaping the logic of photographical objectivity and universality of today’s digital maps such as those of Google. 

Using the maps presented in this paper, we will explore the network linking a man, a cage, some chickens, a city and a utopia.