Comapping

Maps have a history entwined with the history of colonialism. (They only got accurate when Europeans were taking other countries' resources as efficiently as possible.)

Today, we tend to see our public space through the lens of the monolithic Google Maps, our cities reduced to the places we can buy a coffee or new shoes.

Comapping is a project to support communities mapping themselves to tell different stories. So far, we've released three tools (the Comapping Suite) and have run projects in Berlin, Chile and Argentina exploring topics such as gentrification, memory of state crimes during dictatorships and where to find community support during an emergency.

Despite the historic drive of colonialism and capitalism to develop mapping technologies, we see maps as able to rewrite and expand the intimate, communal experiences of where we live. Through workshops, data walks and the creation of our open-source software, the project supports communities to use participatory mapping to share who they are, where they live and what's important to them.