Following on the success of the Mapping the City: A Stranger’s Guide exhibit at the Perkins Library in Spring 2013, students in the Maps, Art and Empire research group are curating Defining Lines: Cartography in the Age of Empire, opening at the Nasher in Fall 2013. This exhibit will be held in conjunction with Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space. Both shows open on September 19.
Drawing from the holdings of Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Defining Lines explores the mutual relationships between maps and empires. As imperial colonial structures rose, consolidated, and ultimately collapsed, the legacy of how their maps delineated colonial holdings, visualized spaces, and reinforced control remains with us. As varied and conflicted as their purposes and perspectives may be, maps continue to function as a powerful and popular medium through which we understand the world and the man-made lines that define and ultimately control it.
The student curators led a Gallery Talk of the exhibit on October 3, 2013. See the video on the upper left for a condensed version. To learn more about how each curator selected the maps for the exhibit, view this playlist.