Dive in to our resource guide to learn more about community asset mapping, using data for social justice, and more. This guide was originally compiled as part of our April 2021 event, Radical Mapping: Making Meaning in Our Communities. Watch recordings of the event here.
1. Reimagining Blackness and Civic Design
“Black spaces can take an infinite number of forms. Black spaces are expansive—they can quickly move from tiny apartment to global phenomena. Black spaces are adaptive and can be made anywhere we show up as ourselves. [ . . . ] Through listening to each other’s memories and lived experiences, we are able to map the Black heritage of the built environment in a way that includes ephemeral, online, and tangible artifacts of the expansiveness of Black spaces.” BlackSpace is a national collective of planners, architects, artists, designers, and urbanists working to co-create and preserve Black culture in the built environment. BlackSpace member Emma Osore writes about the group’s approach to creative place-keeping, and preservation of public systems and urban infrastructures for Black people.
> Read the full piece on our blog
2. What is Community Asset Mapping?
Asset mapping is a map-making methodology that allows the mapper to understand and appreciate a place through the perspectives of those who live there.
> Read about how and why this practice builds community via our blog
3. Do It Yourself: Community Asset Mapping Workbook
Engage in your own community asset mapping process with the help of this workbook! The CAM workbook is a central resource in The LP’s Create Change program, developed in partnership with Ebony Noelle Golden.
> Start mapping
4. In Practice: Artists Share Their Community Asset Mapping Experience
We invited artists from our Create Change alumni community to share their own experiences with the process of community asset mapping, asking them to reflect on a set of prompts:
- What is community asset mapping and how does it show up in your practice?
- What opportunities does asset mapping offer to working in-community?
- What is the relationship between asset mapping and place-keeping?
- What do democratically informed asset mapping practices look like?
Hear from Claro de los Reyes, Xenia Diente, Jaclyn Reyes Amanda Everich, and Betty Yu!
5. Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
How can maps help tenants and tenants’ rights advocates in their fight for justice? In this short Q&A video, learn from Create Change alum Ariana Allensworth (Artist-in-Residence 2019-20) how she and collaborators at the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) use data visualization to help illuminate housing injustices and advocate for change. Ariana will be a panelist as part of Radical Mapping—register for the program to hear her in conversation about AEMP’s work!
Header Image: The Red Line Labyrinth, Walis Johnson. Aerial image of a person walking amongst a labyrinth made from red ropes, installed in a grass lawn.