Mapping Meaning brings together artists, scientists and scholars to explore new modes of acting in the face of social and ecological emergence(y). Inspired by a photograph from 1918 depicting an all-female survey crew, Mapping Meaning supports the creative work and scholarship of those working at edges and ecotones, who are pushing against traditional disciplinary boundaries. Since 2010 this multi-generational collective has been gathering together around experimental knowledge practices.

The project is rooted in five-day experimental workshops that take place biennially at biological field stations in the USAmerican West. Selected women come from across the Americas representing a wide diversity of perspectives and disciplines including: visual art, geology, American Indian Studies, entomology, film, ecology, architecture, American Studies, dance, creative writing, visual anthropology, geography, GIS–land surveying, ethnobotany, permaculture, business, civil & environmental engineering, and folklore.

In a deeply fragmented and disciplined-based world, Mapping Meaning creates a space to encounter divergent approaches toward “surveying” human, ecological and technological landscapes, and ardently resists oversimplification. Through workshops, exhibitions, and transdisciplinary research, Mapping Meaning promotes a radical reconsideration of the role humanity plays in a more-than-human world.

WORKSHOPS:

2010: Pilot Year

Dixie National Forest, Red Canyon, Utah

2012: Ecotone: site of opportunity, experimentation, creativity & emergency

Capitol Reef Field Station, Utah

2014: abcBLITZ (aesthetics, biology, culture)

Canyonlands Research Center, Utah

2016: Changing the Subject: Edges, Narratives and Encounters

Santa Cruz Island Reserve, Channel Islands National Park, California

2018: (re) Surveying the Source: Entanglements of Water, History, and Form

The Taft-Nicholson Center, Centennial Valley, Montana

2021: A retreat for envisioning the next decade of Mapping Meaning

Ghost Ranch Retreat

2023: Photodynamic Gardening Workshop with Trudi Lynn Smith

Hudson Valley, New York

Krista Caballero
Founding Director

Krista Caballero is an interdisciplinary artist exploring issues of agency, survival, and environmental change in a more-than-human world. Moving freely between traditional and emerging media, her work addresses the messy and often surprising encounters between human, ecological, and technological landscapes. In 2010 she created Mapping Meaning, an ongoing project that brings together artists, scientists, and scholars through experimental workshops, exhibitions, and transdisciplinary research.

Caballero was selected as a 2017 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow and is now a Smithsonian Research Associate working with the National Museum of Natural History researching the cultural implications of bird species decline. Her work has been presented across the United States, as well as internationally in exhibitions and festivals such as the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Dubai and New Mexico; the North American Ornithological Conference; “Paradoxes in Video” at Mohsen Gallery in Tehran; EXTREME. ENVIRONMENTS / RAY2018 Photo Triennale in Germany; and and Balance-Unbalance International Festival in Queensland, Australia. Caballero received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and is currently the Co-Director of the Center for Experimental Humanities (EH) and and Artist in Residence at Bard College.

www.kristacaballero.com 

Organizing Committee 2023: Jennifer Richter, Melanie Armstrong, Krista Caballero

Previous Years:

Toni Wynn: Workshop co-director, 2020-2021

Sylvia Torti, Associate Director, 2012-2018

Much gratitude and thanks goes to S.A. Bachman for believing in the vision of Mapping Meaning and helping get the project off the ground in 2010. 

Many thanks to the Honors College at the University of Utah and the Honors College at the University of Maryland, College Park for their support 2012 - 2018.