What if the blanks on maps carried information? This is the angle of attack of an unusual atlas: “The White of the Cards. When the Void Lights Up.”
Craze for scientific explorations
In the past, the unknown lands were filled with phantasmagorical creatures. But from the end of the 18th century, cartographers preferred to leave blank what they did not know. When he drew up the map of Bourbon Island (Reunion) in 1722, the engineer Denis Denyon detailed its coastline, leaving the interior blank.
The gaps in maps also contributed to the enthusiasm for scientific exploration and whetted appetites for colonial conquests. They may result from political or cultural choices, or be made to make certain information visible by contrast.
Gaps persist
“And what is made invisible therefore carries meaning”emphasize the two geographer authors who offer us in this work the analysis of some forty maps. Because, despite the current deluge of digital data, gaps persist, revealing abandoned territories, the absence of roads, electricity, etc.
“The White of the Cards. When the Void Lights Up“, Sylvain Genevois and Matthieu Noucher, maps by Xemartin Laborde, Autrement, 128 p., €29
