We Are Here: Local Mapmakers Explore the World That Connects Us

×

Expand

courtesy Overture Center

A work by Elliee Milligan in the exhibit "We Are Here: Local Mapmakers Explore the World That Connects Us."

press release: Overture Galleries Fall Exhibitions: TUE, SEP 7, 2021 – SUN, JAN 16, 2022

Galleries Reception | FRI, OCT 1, 5-9 PM

Artist Talks, Gallery I, II, III, 5-7 PM; Artists Talks and Presentations in the Playhouse Gallery, 7-9 PM

nibiiwakamigkwe – Gigiigemin/We Heal Together: Jingle Dress Intentions

For over 100 years, the jingle dress has told stories of healing in Native communities. Anishinaabe dancers are taught that each of the cones carries prayers. In the Everything COVID exhibit, community members are invited to write their own hopes, prayers and intentions onto unrolled jingle cones that will be attached to a jingle dress created during the pandemic. During Overture’s International Festival on January 29, 2022, Nibiiwakamigkwe will dance wearing the finished coned dress with songs from Native community members.

Poems by Andrea Musher

Gallery I: Madison is a globally renowned center for mapmaking. University of Wisconsin’s strong cartography program, has been housed in the geography department since the 1940s. Today, the Dane County cartography community includes student training labs, mapping companies, government mapmaking agencies, and a map library. Oftentimes, when you look at a map, the people responsible for creating it work, or were initially trained here in the Madison area.

We are all connected to one another—what you do here, in Madison, matters to someone across the globe, just as their actions matter to you. Whether it be how we treat our air, land, and water, or how we educate and care for people, the impacts have rippling effects. Geographers are asked to stand in the shoes of others, living in very different circumstances. Maps help us to see the everyday world around us in new ways, build connections, identify patterns, and visualize phenomena. We are here in this world together.

This exhibit was developed by the University of Wisconsin Cartography Lab, a center of innovation for map design, interactive visualization, and geographic thinking.