IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES, REAL MAPS

Maps are, by essence, creations of the mind and, as Polish scientist Alfred Korzybski famously stated "The map/ is not/ the territory". Supposedly, maps are imaginary, and territories are real. But what if it was the other way around?

Even though maps are different from reality, in the case of imaginary landcapes, they give substance and reality to those places of the mind. This explains for instance why at the beginning of most fantasy novels one finds a map, which will guide the reader through the world created by a writer, giving it substance.

"The map is more than the territory" is a two-fold project: first it aims at creating or recreating maps of imaginary places (found for instance in Alberto Manguel's Dictionnary): invisible cities, made-up countries, forgotten kingdoms and lost worlds. It will also look into existing maps (fantasy ones but possibily also maps of existing places) in order to imagine or re-imagine the landscapes, territories or environment they depict in a new way.

Real maps and imaginary landscapes would be displayed side by side.

Director of the House of Elsewhere (Maison d'Ailleurs): Patrick Gyger,  Yverdon les Bains, Switzerland