RSVP required at civic.mit.edu.
Maps both conceal and reveal. City planning maps continue to privilege built form and an idealized public with assumed spatial practices. Annette discusses the experimental maps of her research group SLAB that analyze ubiquitous and overlooked urban phenomena such as how street vendors negotiate sidewalk space in Ho Chi Minh City and how 2 million working class people live in bomb shelter apartments in Beijing. She will brainstorm how an art exhibit of her work that will show in HCMC in January might be a venue for social discourse in a governance system like Vietnam.
Annette M. Kim is associate professor in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She directs SLAB which is developing methods of spatial ethnography and critical cartography in order to re-conceptualize urban space and find more inclusive and humane ways to design and govern the 21st century city.
Written by
Andrew Whitacre