Diagrams of Power: Visualizing, Mapping and Performing Resistance assembles contemporary artworks and projects that turn data visualisation and mapping against the systems that produced them — reframing these tools as instruments of counter-narrative and community resilience.
About This Book
Data, diagrams, and maps have long served power: colonial administration, surveillance infrastructure, the management of populations. This volume asks what happens when artists and designers seize these same tools and redirect them. The works collected here do not simply critique — they contribute to social change by engaging marginalised communities in alternative forms of storytelling, communication, and organising. Where conventional visualisations obscure histories or naturalise oppression, the projects in this book make those processes visible and contestable. Essential reading for practitioners and researchers working at the intersection of data visualisation, critical design, and spatial politics.
Key Features
- 308 pages of critical essays, artist projects, and visual documentation spanning contemporary data visualisation and counter-cartography
- Published by Set Margins, 2018
- Originated from an exhibition organised by Onsite Gallery at OCAD University, Toronto, 2018
What You'll Discover
- How data visualisation and mapping have historically functioned as instruments of colonisation, surveillance, and population management
- Artist and designer strategies for producing counter-narratives that challenge dominant, institutionalised representations of communities and histories
- The role of performance and embodiment as forms of diagrammatic resistance — extending visualisation beyond the static image into lived practice
- How alternative approaches to storytelling and organising can build resilience within marginalised communities through design and visual communication
About the Author
Patricio Davila is the editor of this volume. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 308
- Dimensions: 130 x 200 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9789083350196
- Publisher: Set Margins
- Publication Date: 2018
Perfect For: Graphic designers, spatial practitioners, and researchers engaged with critical cartography, data visualisation ethics, and the politics of representation in design.