Free the Map

New cartographic means of visualizing people and society, beyond the traditional borders of the nation-state

A map is a visual story of the world. It feeds our imagination and shapes our view of the world. A standard atlas, however, predominantly tells only one story: that of the nation-state. It depicts a world in which people are uniformly packed into national containers, enclosed by borders, and in which migration is often represented as threatening invasion arrows. Free the Map goes beyond this narrow, state-centric cartography. The book argues for a new cartographic story along the lines of Hermes, the grandson of Atlas and the god of mobility and human connections. To this end, it discusses several visually compelling, alternative cartographic representations of borders and migration. Free the Map ends with a call to action; artists and cartographers offer exciting ready-to-use challenges for educational and public resources.