North is Up?

North is Up? | installation view at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum | Japan | 2014

Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map has no right way up. Fuller argued that there was no ‘up’ and ‘down’, or ‘north’ and ‘south’ in the universe: only ‘in’ and ‘out’.  The gravitational forces of the stars and planets created ‘in’, towards the gravitational center, and ‘out’, or away from the gravitational center.

North is Up? is a study of maps, both topographical and topological. Like topology, the area of mathematics concerned with the properties of space that are preserved under continuous deformations including stretching and bending, the drawing is an exploration of continuity, connectivity and boundaries.

Focusing on the interface between positive and negative spaces, or the relationship of forms that share edges, North is Up? can be read in several ways. From a bird’s eye view, we look down on strange cartography and stranger topography. From the worm’s eye view we look into a crack in space that threatens to erupt or explode.