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Introduction. Contre-cartographier

Christina Contandriopoulos

Le paysage impérial

W. J. T Mitchell

La scène de Gaïa : la carte comme « théâtre » de la condition écologique planétaire

Anna De Martino
The article explores the relationship between cartography and performativity, linking maps and theatre as spaces for re-signifying the world. Building on the reflections of Deleuze, Guattari, and contemporary critical cartography, it shows how maps are not mere representations but ontogenetic devices that perform territory. The metaphor of the Theatrum Mundi is examined in its historical development (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1570 ; Theatro della Memoria, 1550) and contemporary reinvestment, particularly in the works of Frédérique Aït-Touati and Bruno Latour. Through the Terrestrial Trilogy and the atlas Terra Forma, Earth (Gaïa) no longer appears as an ornament but as a central political and ecological agent. This perspective highlights counter-cartography and theatre as tools capable of rethinking the relations between humans, non-humans, and the world.

Matières Premières. Pour une archéologie de la persistance des sols

Philippe Nys
The aim here is to follow, to trace, to track the tracks of an poïetic anthropology from the perspective of the power of words and images through the “retour du sol” (return to soil/ground) at work in the spirit of the times, in what are also known as the “common goods”, the ultimate good of which is, or would be, planet Earth. The danger to the planet is growing to such an extent that nothing can save it, not even a god. We must leave it. For some technophiles and businesspeople, this is no longer a matter of “if” but “when”. The prospect of leaving Earth is no longer just the stuff of science fiction or comic books; it is becoming increasingly plausible, with its prefiguration in the form of space tourism, detailed and precise explorations of other planets. Consider, for example, the extraordinary images of erosion on Mars. And this is almost certainly only the beginning. The implications of such a horizon lead to the creation and development of an expanding field of geo-logy according to a series of points, stations in a “sequence” composed of geo-centrism, geo-statism, geo-logy, geo-sophy, geo-poetics, geo-graphies, geo-stories... What about planet Earth, with its land use of surfaces and layers that deplete them and create deserts? Without being a ghost, ground has (re)emerged at the forefront of renewed and new diagnoses of the body of the Earth and its constituent elements in their relationship to the actions of human societies. For the past thirty years or so, numerous publications have testified to what might be called the hermeneutics of architecture, referring to multiple projects that have brought the ground back into the picture, and rather into the carpet, involving the sub- and above-ground, these mythical (muthos), philosophical (logos) and technological (technè) layers. It is in these perspectives that one must understand “raw material” today.

BIENALSUR : une biennale archipélique ? Vers la fabrication de contre-cartographies spatiales, temporelles et épistémologiques

Analays Álvarez Hernández
This article examines the potential of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of South America, BIENALSUR, to generate counter-cartographies. Since its first edition in 2017, this biennial, organized by a public university in Buenos Aires, has openly positioned itself as a break with the dominant model of major biennials and, in doing so, aspires to deconstruct some of the contradictions inherent to this mega-exhibition format. While BIENALSUR clearly expresses a desire to produce counter-cartographies by challenging the spatial, temporal, and epistemological parameters of major international biennials, it nevertheless faces difficulties in realizing the “archipelagic” potential it claims at the discursive level.

Deux corps. L’image contre la carte dans la « White Hills » map de John Foster (1677)

Bianca Laliberté
This article emancipates the first map ever engraved and printed in English North America—the White Hills Map by John Foster (1677)— from the history of cartography, in favour of its reconciliation with a broader understanding of technical progress in America. The presence here of two “Indigenous” figures is, for the first time, subject to a problematization, from the perspective of the irrevocable tension they bear, between image and map, rationality and nature, terror and State. The article is organized into three sections. The first establishes the chosen historiographical positioning. The second develops a formal and diagrammatical analysis of Foster’s map. The third reminds the reader of the intermedial context on which this object’s production sheds light, by rearticulating the map to the general category which proves most appropriate from a historical point of view, that of the useful arts.

Une architecture frontalière : étude des cartes et paysages de Joseph Bouchette (1774–1841)

Andréanne Martel
This article examines representations of borders as State infrastructure—between architecture and the monumentalization of nature—in the maps, landscapes, and books of Lower Canada Surveyor General Joseph Bouchette (1774–1841). Survey markers, obelisks, and mountains are considered infrastructural points of the State and components of a networked geometry. The aim is to highlight the active construction of the British State’s grid system and the challenges posed to this infrastructure by other fields of ecological and social relationality. Identifying the complex relationality of First Nations with the territory and ecological processes—often opposed to the demarcation of colonial borders—can destabilize the role of the border as a hegemonic infrastructure and draw attention to the alternative forces that territorialize and claim territory. Thus, the proposed counter-mapping perspective is based on a particular way of reading maps, revealing points of resistance where the grid of points and the borders are obscured and weakened by the deepening of relationships between people, living beings, and the Earth.

Beothuk Shorelines: Counter-Mapping as Mapwriting and the Drawings of Shanawdithit

Nicholas Chare
From 1828 to 1829, in the town of St. John’s in Newfoundland, the Beothuk captive Shanawdithit produced a series of drawings at the behest of the settler colonist entrepreneur and amateur ethnographer William Eppes Cormack. He intended these drawings, which he annotated, to provide a record of Beothuk history and culture. Their significance for Shanawdithit clearly exceeded this aim, enabling her to affirm enduring ties to place and community. Five of the drawings include detailed depictions of areas of land of great importance to her people. Physical features, particularly the contours of lakeshores and riverbanks, are carefully rendered. These drawings are maps, diagrammatic portrayals of land and water masses, combined with historical accounts of major events. The accuracy of Shanawdithit’s mapping and its value as an expression of her agency as a counter to colonial cartographic practices have long been recognized. Scholars have also reflected on how to write about the maps without treating them simply as data resources or instrumentalizing them. In this essay, I demonstrate that counter-mapping, a practice often associated with contemporary concerns, can also be of considerable importance when engaging with historical maps such as those produced by Shanawdithit. Additionally, I draw on notions of counter-mapping to examine how Shanawdithit’s maps have been written about and to chart possible alternative ways of engaging with them. In relation to these alternatives, I conclude by briefly developing the idea of mapwriting (one word) as an intermedial anti-method and theory.

Carte contre carte : lecture rapprochée des restes du quartier Sainte-Cunégonde — ou Harlem du Nord

Stephan Kowal
Borrowing close reading from literary theory and criticism, as well as microhistorical techniques from historiography, is it possible to envision a counter-cartographic reading of existing maps? This text offers a theoretical and methodological approach to the close reading of maps, in order to propose an interpretation of counter-cartography. The text offers a thorough reading of cartographic artifacts from the Little Burgundy neighbourhood in Montreal.

« Un lien technique, affectif et visuel » : hydroélectricité et cinéma documentaire à l’Office national du film du Canada

Laure Bourgault
This article reflects on the counter-cartographic potential of documentary films on Québec’s hydroelectric development, produced by the National Film Board of Canada between the 1960s and 1990s. Drawing on archival research from the production of the films De Montréal à Manicouagan (1963, Arthur Lamothe), James Bay Communications Projet (c.1971), Power (1996, Magnus Isacsson), and Sur le dos de la Grande-Baleine (1993, Diane Beaudry), this article analyzes how these films have contributed to media debates about the industrial development of the territory, and have helped shape the geographical imaginaries.

Counter-Mapping Gentrification Through Small Stories: Microscales of Care, Affect, and Place-based Relationality in Parc-Extension

Sepideh Shahamati and Tamara Vukov
This article examines practices of counter-mapping gentrification through the lens of residents’ lived experiences. We argue for expanding counter-mapping approaches to gentrification beyond the visual and representational power of maps, conveying how it disrupts attachment to place and senses of belonging, as well as transforming social life. Intentionally focusing on the singularity of one resident’s story as a counter-practice to data accumulation, we explore its potential to open discussions about gentrification and its broader effects on the everyday lives of residents in the area. We engage closely with the story of one such resident of Parc-Extension, a Montréal neighbourhood undergoing rapid gentrification, and explore his memories and experiences through intermedial narrative mapping. By reading the story through text, images, and place-mapping at a microscale, and by embracing slowness, reflection, and deep listening, this work highlights the importance of moving beyond the accumulation of aggregated data points toward an attunement to the affective and relational impacts of gentrification.

The Matter of Maps. Counter-Mapping Public Art by Womxn in Tiohtià:ke · Montréal

Lena MK
This article recounts and analyzes the research-creation process that led to the participatory mapping installation titled […] and counting (2024), in light of its approach to counter-cartography. The installation space welcomes participants to learn about and contribute to a map of womxn artists’ entry in Tiohtià:ke · Montréal’s public space. Data and algorithms are crossed with queer textiles practices to embody new and more diverse narratives. Through the situated and sensory interfaces of the map, meaning is embedded into materiality, and touch triggers cartographic interaction as well as knowledge production.

Un atlas participatif de l’Île Verte : huit cartes pour dialoguer avec les habitants, les traditions et l’environnement bâti de l’île

Patrick Evans and Emmanuelle Bergeron
In November 2022, a group of graduate students in environmental design at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), together with their professor, undertook a participatory cartography project on Île Verte, in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec. Developed in response to the fragility of vernacular knowledge and the built heritage, the project resulted in the production of an evolving atlas made of eight thematic maps developed through dialogue with island residents.Rather than treating the map as a fixed representational object, this project takes an approach we call “conversational cartography,” in which mapping operates as an iterative, situated, and intermedial process. Preliminary maps, designed as foldable, incomplete documents, were deployed in the field to initiate exchanges, gather oral histories, and document material practices. These encounters generated layered, heterogeneous forms of knowledge, sometimes contradictory, which were deliberately preserved and translated across multiple media, including drawing, annotation, architectural survey, oral accounts and finally public exhibition.This article first outlines the methodological framework underpinning our approach, emphasizing the role of variations in scale, representational hybridity, and the coexistence of divergent narratives. It then examines, through a situated contribution, the case of the island’s smokehouses (fumoirs) as vernacular microarchitectures that embody the interconnections between labour, memory, and environment.By foregrounding the processes of negotiation, translation, and iteration, this study argues for a redefinition of cartography as a living practice of documentation and interpretation, one that does not stabilize knowledge but renders visible its conditions of construction, its gaps, and its modes of transmission.

Cartographier la survivance : Al Anqaâ de Taysir Batniji

Valeria Téllez Niemeyer and Hend Ben Salah