Keynote Presentations
May 25
James Cheshire — Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World.
Professor James Cheshire will share how he and Oliver Uberti transformed enormous datasets into rich maps and cutting-edge visualisations for their latest book Atlas of the Invisible. It is a book that reveals happiness levels around the globe, tracks the undersea cables and cell towers that connect us, examines the concealed scars of geopolitics, and illustrates how a warming planet affects everything from hurricanes to the hajj. James will outline how a collaborative approach and workflow are crucial to creating compelling visualizations and will draw examples from he and Oliver’s data rich maps to show how information that usually only appears as figures in scientific journals or technical reports can be transformed into compelling full-page graphics for a broad audience.
James Cheshire is Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography in the UCL Department of Geography and Director of the UCL Social Data Institute. He is co-author of the critically acclaimed books London: The Information Capital, Where the Animals Go and Atlas of the Invisible. James is the recipient of a number of major awards from the Royal Geographical Society, The American Association of Geographers, The North American Cartographic Information Society and British Cartographic Society. He was President of the Society of Cartographers between 2017 and 2019.
May 26
Mark Palmer — Indigenous Peoples, Calendars, and Mapping Space-Time.
It is often challenging to think of Indigenous maps as 2-dimensional constructs. Complexity stems from relationships between landforms on earth and constellations in the sky. Indigenous knowledge systems contain tangible and intangible elements that must be considered when developing representations. One example of an Indigenous knowledge system is the calendar. Indigenous people have long cultivated extensive knowledge of movements of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars and many constellations, keeping highly accurate calendars over a span of several thousand years. Calendars are closely associated within the space and time of ceremonial and agricultural cycles and have a direct relationship with environmental stewardship and food sovereignty. This presentation will discuss the creation of a three-dimensional dome planetarium project that considers many cartographic related elements like scale, projections, orientation, and symbolization. In some ways, 3-D visualization technologies are thought to create a more realistic representation of environments than 2-D images. On the other hand, 3-D visualization technologies distort and transform space. Indigenous media is increasingly using 3-D visualizations for storytelling, story mapping, and knowledge transmission.
Mark Palmer is Associate Professor in Geography at the University of Missouri. His work focuses upon the social aspects of geographic information systems including the uneven development of geographic information networks within institutions and their connections and disconnections within indigenous communities around the world. Palmer’s Recent work includes research on UNESCO World Heritage nomination maps/GIS, Indigenous mapping, and processes of Indigenous imaging and visualizations. He has published in journals like the Annals for the Association of American Geographers, Cartographica, Sustainability Science, and the Canadian Geographer. Professor Palmer is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.