Cartography Is Here.

Abstract

In late June 2019, I received an email from Chris McDowall, a good friend and geographer at heart, saying: ‘And the atlas...Ohman. This has been so stressful and I’ve tied myself up in all sorts of knots over it. Would you be free [...] to look over it with me if I dropped by for a couple of hours?’ I agreed, little knowing what I am about to experience! A few days later, Chris walked in with a proof copy ofWeAre Here: An atlas of Aotearoa (Figure 1(a)) under his arm (McDowall & Denee, 2019). We sat down at a large layout table and... I was teleported to the world of cartography at its best. Every new map I looked at, every graph, every visualisation resonated withme,mademe curious and enquiring (and it still does). In a ‘user testing’ style I was reporting back to Chris what I thought about each plate, what worked for me, what I was not sure about. Having him sitting next to me was special as I was able to learn about his thinking behind the design choices he made in exchange. A couple of hours turned unnoticeably into four. My honest and spontaneous response to the atlas put Chris at ease; it seemed the ‘knots’ he had tied himself up in became loosened... Ten days later the book was sent to the printer. In an introduction to the atlas, Chris’ co-author and graphic designer for the project Tim Denee shares the following sentiment: ‘This is a book about a treasured place in the world and the people who live here, so it was important to us that the book had some grace.’ This approach has all the ingredients that are necessary when embarking on a cartographic project: the recognition of a worthwhile subject, the respect for the reader, and the promise of utilising talents to deliver beautiful, relevant and inspiring content. Mapping NewZealand, this treasured place, is always rewarding design-wise. If God ever looked for an inspiration to create Eden, there would be a very good chance it would have been Aotearoa. This dynamic and varied land provides a cartographer with infinite possibilities to map it, although it is not free from challenges. The devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake that claimed the lives of 185 people is not a happy story, but one which needs to be told to understand New Zealand today. The atlas takes on this subject in an unorthodox fashion by refocusing the attention to the consequences of the event – The Sinking City, which in places subsided by half a metre or more. The preand post-event high definition terrain surveys provide the data, while the dark blue colouring of the areas affected most makes a logical association with liquefaction, chiefly responsible for literally sinking the city (Figure 1(b)). The black speckles of residential homes in Burwood that once were are reminiscent of the hundreds of people that lived there, their houses now gone.