Free the Map: the Politics of Cartography

All maps are political. How do the lines on a map shape our view of the world — of people on the move, and of nature itself?

In this programme, we explore a new cartographic imagination, one rooted in human experience and connection rather than control. With alternative mapmaking, Free the Map calls for a radical rethinking of how we view the world — and what a map released from its territorial trap might look like.

About Free the Map
The project Free the Map, by Henk van Houtum, is a sharp critique of the state-centric logic behind most maps, which frame the world as a grid of bordered nation-states, with migration depicted as a threat, people as arrows on a map, nature as a legenda. But the map isn’t the territory — an age-old philosophical idea that has urgent political meaning today.