Mapping our world

Is it possible to represent the world without interpreting it? This is the question at the heart of A Necessary Fiction: Maps, Art, and Models of Our World, an exhibition promoted by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia and presented at the Abbazia di San Gregorio during the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Sara Almutlaq and Aurora Fonda, the exhibition brings together maps, globes, manuscripts and contemporary artworks across five sections to explore one of the tools that has most profoundly shaped our relationship with reality: cartography.
Beyond the courtyard, where Nasser Al Salem’s celestial routes rise into view, the journey begins in a time when finding one’s way meant reading the landscape, following the stars and relying on the body. It is with the emergence of the first maps, however, that this knowledge becomes a narrative.

This is revealed in the dialogue between Gerardus Mercator’s Celestial Globe and the cosmographic manuscripts of Al-Qazwīnī, where astronomical observation, mythology and tradition contribute to constructing the same image of the Earth. Through a careful selection of Arabic manuscripts and historical maps from major international institutions, the reflection moves from myth to power, showing how establishing a centre, a periphery and boundaries means, first and foremost, constructing an idea of oneself and of the other.
Moving through works by Shilpa Gupta, Tod Wodicka, Ibrahim Mahama and many others, the exhibition ultimately arrives at the contemporary. Here, Eva & Franco Mattes’ My Little Big Data takes the logic of the algorithm to its extreme, revealing the paradox of hyper-cartography: a world that is increasingly measurable, but not necessarily more comprehensible. As a counterpoint, Giorgio Andreotta Calò invites us to reclaim space through his walking pieces, while Yoko Ono’s words echo through the courtyard, urging us to create personal geographies.
More than a history of maps, A Necessary Fiction reconstructs the genealogy of the gazes that have produced them, reminding us that every representation of the world is inevitably also a representation of ourselves.

Featured image: Sarah Abu Abdallah, Following the Lines (2022)