Mapping the Imagination - Exhibit

Mapping the Imagination, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
3 October 2007 - 27 April 2008

Maps are simplified schematic diagrams that employ a universal visual language through which we codify and comprehend our world. We all use maps in our daily lives as sources of information about places, routes, networks and boundaries. They offer us the means of describing and understanding the intangible too - everything from air routes and constellations to states of mind.

Although mapping is a method of gathering, ordering and recording knowledge, all maps are to some extent the products of imagination. No map is ever the truly objective description of a place that it purports to be. Every map is shaped - and coloured - by political, cultural and social conditions, and by the personal experience or imaginative projections of its maker.

This display includes maps made to inform or to entertain, maps enhanced by imaginative embellishments, maps that show imaginary places, and works in which artists have adapted map iconography to express their ideas and experiences of place.