Kingdom of Rhode Island2020
Art
A series of artwork and contexualizing essay challenging viewers to perceive maps as indexical, selective, and colonialist
Maps are symbols of progress, imaginations of political communities, and sources of scientific truth. They are also tools of empire: alive with ambition, but also silent, stifling creatures that erase the histories of peoples who originally oversaw and cultivated the land which they chart.
Kingdom of Rhode Island is a product of a semester-long grapple with those complicated dichotomies.