On Friday night November 1 I went down to ASU to see the reopening of the Imagined Borders map exhibit at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. It was nice to see many old friends and old maps again. I was asked to make a few remarks about the exhibition which is well hung and has a very nice gallery guide with an overly flattering brief bio of me.
The exhibit is open to the public contact the School of Transborder Studies to get details. Here are my notes for the remarks I was asked to make at the opening:
Map Talk 11/01/19
Have you read The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien? The book is more than a thousand pages and took twelve years to write. Tolkien was asked how he kept all of the plot lines straight and he replied: “I wisely started with a map and made the story fit.”
Here at the School of Transborder Studies you have done the opposite and it has worked. You have a story to tell and have found maps that help to tell the story.
Some questions I’ve been asked about the maps:
Why did you collect maps?
To collect something that I could afford that aligned with my work.
and was a narrow enough focus that I could reach critical size.
Where did you buy them?
Around the world.
Singapore, the UK, Mexico
Mainly in Sante Fe, NM
How did you know that they were authentic?
I didn’t and not all of them were.
The lesson is that you have to take risks.
Did you really curate a traveling exhibit of the maps?
Yes over the course of two and a half years we exhibited the Map collection at six venues including ASU and Centro Cultura in Tijuana
I thought that if people saw how randomly the political boundary was drawn they would be less anxious about defending it.
So far that hasn’t been the case
Why did you donate them to the School of Transborder Studies?
It was my hope that the maps could stay together and be a tool both for scholars and for promoting amity on the border.
Professor Carlos Velez-Ibanez and I worked together to make it happen.
What are you collecting now?
Nothing except for experiences, photos and rocks.
For me the internet has taken much of the serendipity out of collecting physical things.
However I did recently buy a book from 1782 that has a complete set of instructions on how to build a stone bridge across the Seine. I’m hoping to find it a home eventually.