Exhibition – “geografisch post/kolonial: wie aus Karten und Bildern Welt entsteht” (geographic post/colonial: How World is created from Maps and Images)
Maps and pictures say more than a thousand words. Without words, they tell us stories about the world. Although they are always just snippets of world, they have the power to influence our ideas about the whole world: What world looks like and what happens in the world.
But maps and pictures are not a reflection of reality. They are produced. But who or what is behind these pictures and maps? And which stories of the world do they tell and which do they not?
Geographers have been involved in producing the world with maps and images for centuries. Geography was one of the first disciplines at the University of Hamburg because it was able to bring the world to Hamburg with maps and pictures at a time when travel was still complicated, time-consuming and expensive – in other words, a privilege for the few. These few (like Humboldt, for example) produced maps and images with their view of the world, some of which are still used today to explain the world to us.
The virtual exhibition
“geografisch post/kolonial: wie aus Karten und Bildern Welt entsteht” (geographic post/colonial: How World is created from Maps and Images) can now be seen as a virtual exhibition after the physical exhibition in the Geomatikum has been disassembled. Originally created as a digital alternative during the Covid-19 pandemic, it provides an opportunity to engage with some of the exhibition’s content from home.