Abstract: The map is a powerful medium for effectively communicating a large amount of often complex spatial data in an efficient and attractive manner. For the past few centuries the making of maps has been underlain by a scientific worldview, with an overriding imperative for accuracy and objectivity. However, the potential of personal narrative and art to complement science-led maps is now being recognised as a way of representing social and individual geographic phenomena. These alternative representations affect the viewer in a more impactful and emotional way, providing a more personal channel of spatial communication that often suits grassroots and community initiatives as well as public dissemination. This presentation will visit two case studies. One is a project that captured the local knowledge of experienced members of the Bluff oyster fishery, New Zealand, to empower their point of view – a fishery under critical stress. This was an informal mapping exercise of grounds fished over the decades – a personal spatial narrative. Some ways of representing this data, both with and without the nearest equivalent scientific data representation are explored. The second case study is a collaboration with a local artist to build an interactive art-map interface of the history of the kea, the alpine parrot endemic to the South Island of New Zealand. Both case studies also demonstrate spatial data that changes through time and the power of art in particular to address this will be considered.

Biography: Antoni Moore is a senior lecturer in Geographical Information Science (GIS) at the National School of Surveying, University of Otago. His current research interests focus on geovisualisation and cartography, including visual representation using art, narrative and informal mapping as a complement to conventional mapping.  He is the coordinator of the GIS applied science degrees and postgraduate diploma (BAppSc, MAppSc, PGDipAppSc) at Otago and is currently secretary of the New Zealand Cartographic Society. His academic training was in the UK, in GIS and geography, with a PhD in Geographical Information Science from the University of Plymouth, MSc degree in Geographical Information Systems from the University of Leicester and a BSc(Hons) in Geographical Science from the University of Portsmouth. He was previously a lecturer in Otago’s Department of Information Science from 2001-2007 and before that a coastal GIS Analyst at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK.