Mapping: exhibit

Mapping is an exhibition by Naoe Suzuki at the Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts from October 19th through December 9th, 2020. The exhibition takes place in multiple locations on campus. It is open to the Rivers School community but not to the public due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mapping is one way we come to understand the world through organizing and systemizing layers of information. The organization of information helps us understand the scope of data and information visually. 

Suzuki, a native of Japan, recalls that the first drawing she remembers making was a map drawing at the age of three while living in Tokyo. She ventured to a park on her own one day and came back home, then drew a map to convince her mother that she walked to the park by herself. This experience taught her that maps can tell stories with information. She also understood the power of maps.

In this exhibition, Suzuki presents several different bodies of work that are related to mapping and maps. The collecting and organizing of layers of information in science, and the weaving of histories can be seen as her attempt to understand the unknown and the time we are in. The drawings based on historical maps are presented with selected information visible within the cartographic system. Her choice of selection, in this case, are the names of animals found on the maps of the Adirondacks Wilderness. It is these hidden inhabitants on the lands that speak from the darkness. She says, “Can you hear them cry even from the maps?”