art.object.story with Bonny McClain | Artist Workshop & Talk

art.object.story

Here is the invitation. We are going to build stories together. Bring in a physical object, like a photograph, piece of art, or even something as ethereal as a memory, we can reimagine them – art as words.

These fragments can be catalysts for establishing a writing life or creativity at large.

I am a geospatial data scientist. Geospatial data science focuses on spatial intelligence and location. Peel away the gobbledy gook and we are fundamentally talking about “place”.

There is a saying coined by mathematician Alfred Korzybski, the map is not the territory. Pretty heady commentary to a room full of cartographers and analysts. The equivalent of debunking myths like the tooth fairy or Santa himself.

What we mean is, you can create, observe, or hold a physical map in your hands or on your phone and that’s all there is. Extrapolating what you see confined to the limits of your perception is not what that place feels like in real time.

A map is a reduction of a reality and just by the nature of the limits, important details are often left out. How you see things isn’t how things actually are.

Our storytelling can close these gaps. Think of a map as a piece of art. Honestly the first graphic visualization we explore is likely a map.

Now let’s explore the patterns, textures, topography, color etc. We are now holding an object.

My perception is unique to my lived reality. My story will be different. Now if we accept an invitation to engage with other lived realities – stepping outside our worlds – now we can experience different perspectives. The art of impactful storytelling. And often a stepping stone for radical empathy.