Maps on Purpose


Art on Purpose, an organization that uses art to bring people together around issues and ideas, is partnering with multiple mostly at-risk Baltimore City neighborhoods to create community-made maps inspired by Maps: Finding Our Way in the World, at The Walters Art Museum. In a series of map-making workshops, residents will map such things as: neighborhood hidden treasures, the gap between the perception of safety and actual safety, gang territories, and other topics determined by a community-input process put in place by Art on Purpose and its neighborhood partners.

Mapping workshops are led by experienced community artists and include adult and youth from the neighborhoods. They will learn about the wide-ranging maps coming to The Walters’ exhibition, gather data about their own communities, and create artistic, hand-made maps modeled on one or more of the Walters’ maps, but conveying information they have elected to focus upon as a community.

In a series of exhibitions beginning in March at the Walters, events, and forums to follow, the maps will be used as the basis for neighborhood celebrations, networking events, advocacy, and other purposes to be determined once the maps are created. Maps on Purpose takes museum-quality maps and uses them as a catalyst for giving voice and exposure to those ordinarily disenfranchised from civic discourse.