Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark. Photo: Anders Sune Berg |
The Mapmaker
Installation (2008)
Floor carpet 640×400 cm.
Wall tapestry 585×305 cm.
Video with text, 8 min.
Produced in collaboration with Ege Carpets
The map referred to in this work is the first official Danish map drawn of St. Croix, completed in 1750. It was made by order of the Danish king in an attempt to encourage Europeans to travel to the island and establish plantations. In The Mapmaker, this early map was transformed into a carpet and accompanied by a text projection and a photographic wall tapestry. Reflecting on the acts of mapping and naming as ways of occupying space, the work also addresses how the routes of the colonizer continue to be traced by the routes of tourists today.