So ends a line in the introduction to a fabulous book 'The Quarantine Atlas", which I've been reading on and off for a few weeks. The book used cartography - the art of drawing maps - as a way into people's experiences of the COVID-19 lockdown; "... the strangeness and stressors". What is wonderful about this book is the markedly different ways people interpret drawing a map, and it gives real insight into what people prioritise and present to a reader when asked to complete a task such as drawing.
Many of the maps are intimate scratchings of a home; walls, bedrooms, bathrooms are drawn; office spaces in the centre, birds outside a window. Daily tasks are noted, routines are deeply circled and repeated, zones within a house clearly marked; 'this is where I make the coffee, this is where I sit and chill, this is where I sleep'. Some of the maps have multiple rooms, birds-eye views and architectural in style.
For others it's more conceptual. For example, one map is a series of boxes categorised as 'normal' and 'new normal' with grand titles such as "Where I Play Records" and "Where I Howl Out The Window" (I will leave you to guess which is the 'new normal' there).
As well as mapped homes, there are mapped neighbourhood walks where people ventured outside for designated exercise. These are detailed, as you can imagine the subject was repeated visited, and there are parades of closed shops and people walking dogs. One image that stood out for me was entitled "map of sounds in my neighbourhood" (see image attached; p100). Drawn in Spring 2020, this map captured sounds such as birdsong, noting down different birds such as owls and sparrows; traffic; the wind; as well as people talking as the artist walked through their local space, paying a lot more attention to sounds than they had previously. I think this uniquely expressed a shared experience for many in terms of anecdotal reports of hearing more birdsong as the constant burr of traffic ceased in lockdown.
The editor, Laura Bliss, tell us that this book
"documents a piece of the emotional turbulence of the world turning upside down."
For many, worlds were turned upside down and inside out. I remember speaking to research participants during the first few months of lockdown in 2020; both as a 'jobbing' researcher and for my PhD, and the themes in this book really resonate. To extract my data, I used more traditional qualitative methods, such as interviews and focus groups; verbal exchanges constructed between me and my interviewees. Now as I reflect on my own work and methods used, I look in awe at other ways researchers capture information, as Bloomberg CityLab did with this project. Understanding more about people through creative means such as this will very much be on my agenda for future projects.
See for yourself at The Quarantine Atlas: Mapping Global Life Under COVID-19 by Laura Bliss
Note: This post is not an Ad; I just enjoyed the book so thought I'd share.