Masterclass: Sensing the City
Counter-mapping as a method of critical inquiry in climate change

>Online workshop - 2nd December 2021

Expression of Interest - Due Date for EOI - 31st October, 2021

Counter-mapping is a method of critical inquiry in social art making, urban planning, and community development that disrupts, connects and makes visible the ways local stories, practices, relationships, physical memories, and rituals constitute meaning. Historically, maps have also served as tools of colonization, ownership and exclusion. Contemporary artists, cultural development workers and community activists use creative citizen-led cartographies as tools for engagement, understanding relationships, and to draw attention to counter-narratives and the politics of land, place and history.

In this masterclass, we focus on Sensing the City.  Creative artists and urban theorists will team up to share practical projects and approaches and facilitate a series of interactive mapping activities for sensing the city. Participants will be exposed to methods that are experimental and diverse including: visual art practices, digital and gestural drawing, sound art and sonic practices, walking, creative movement, performance and installations in relation to emotion and affect; aesthetics and sensory engagement including smell, sight, sound; conflict, tension and congestion; activism and play of the more than human world.

All participants in the Masterclass will receive a reading pack and video playlist prepared by the masterclass team, including materials and prompts to enable people to creatively experiment with a range of counter-mapping techniques in their own location.

The Masterclass is facilitated by an interdisciplinary team of artists and researchers from RMIT University, Melbourne including: MFI (the Mapping Future Imaginaries research network), School of Education; CAST (Contemporary art and social transformation) research group and CUG (Critical Urban Governance Research program), Centre for Urban Research.

If you are interested in participating in the Masterclass please fill in the below form

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2021 Facilitators

-Dr Marnie Badham has a 25 year history of art and social justice practice in Australia and Canada. Her research sits at the intersection of socially-engaged art, participatory research methodologies and the politics of cultural measurement.
-Rachel Iampolski is a producer, arts administrator and current PhD candidate exploring alternative socio-spatial use of public space from a heritage framework and the impact it has on the ambience of a city.
-A/Professor Linda Knight uses critical and speculative practices to explore diverse notions of citizenship. Linda devised ‘Inefficient Mapping’ as both an art practice and a methodological protocol for projects informed by ‘post-‘ theories.
-A/Professor Wendy Steele is an urban researcher whose research focuses on the nature of wild cities in climate and the role of quiet activism at the local scale. Her interest is in critical urban governance and how practices of justice and equity underpin sustainability.
-Dr Troy Innocent is an urban play scholar and artist gamemaker, playing in cities such as Melbourne, Bristol, Barcelona and Hong Kong. Innocent is creator of 64 Ways of Being, an art experience making cities playable through augmented reality.