Auckland and the Meaningful Map (Season Extended!)

The Auckland City Central Library has extended this project by another week! Come down and add to the Meaningful Map of Auckland by writing about Meaningful events that have happened to you in Central Auckland.

A Collaborative Art Project
Maps cannot entirely be trusted. Not that they are completely untrue, just that they only tell part of the story and maps can influence decision-making by making things appear simpler than they really are. In this installation, a series of maps will show how Auckland Tamaki Makaurau has been presented in different ways by various mapmakers, with different skills and purposes, from colonisers to cavers to community leaders, who all looked at this place and saw different things in its present, its past, and, importantly, its future.

A great city is created by diverse people with multiple perspectives and so to balance up the power dynamic we invite you to join the creative mapping resistance and add your perspective by collaborating on the Meaningful Map. The Meaningful Map includes all the other valuable elements
of the city that may otherwise be missed – stories of encounter, thrilling perspectives, safe havens, underground rivers, animal habitats, traces of historical socio-cultural events and glorious dreams that have made the city what it is. In short, the meaningful map locates the stories of the city and so we ask: what stories of the city can you share to shows us what this place means to you?

Each story shared will be used to create a map that will be presented back to the people of the city.
Come into the memory den, add your story of Auckland and together we'll unflatten the map.

Alex Bonham is a theatremaker who is doing a PhD on the Playful City at Auckland University.