After the murder of Ingrid Escamilla, authorities in charge of her investigation leaked extremely graphic photos of her death that went viral. In an effort to control and dignify the internet search results for her name, twitter users spammed social media with photos of nature, flowers, illustrations of Ingrid and photoshopped images of her in beautiful places. I think it’s very powerful how people are collectively altering metadata that was dehumanizing her, and turned it into a colorful, digital memorial to honour her life instead.

An interesting text about the theory of online memorial culture: here.

A text about Deleuze and Memorial Culture: here.

1. A map of where chilangos are from.
2. A map of how my walk on along the River Dee has changed with my getting acquainted with the city.
3. A map of where grief is deposited in Aberdeen and Mexico City.
4. A map of where my loved ones are.
5. A map of memorial benches in Aberdeen.
6. A map of how I got from Tokyo to Aberdeen.
7. A map of how my movement in the city of Aberdeen has changed as I get acquainted with it.
8. A map that shows where my comfort foods are from and where I find them in the city I am in.

The lecture made me think that deep mapping is a just way of representing a personal account. The fact that it embraces experience as a guiding and writing tool, works well in the making of a visual representation of movement and travel. Deep mapping makes space for empathy because it makes visible the relationship between those who inhabit a space, the space itself and the people who seek to speak of that space.

It is also interesting to consider the politics of map making. A power relation exists in the narrative. It reminded me of Mexican monographs. I used to buy them in primary school from the little stationery and grocery shops that are in every corner of Mexico City. Our teachers asked us to recreate it by hand, so we would draw our interpretation of the illustrations and copy the exact text that was on the back of each. They were «official» versions of historical events such as the Mexican Independence, the Revolution, and the «discovery» of America. They were so horrible looking and, most of the time, incorrect and incomplete.

There is agency in a deep-mapping experience.

I learned about Patrick Geddes, who recognized an interdependence between culture and nature. Which made me think again about the memorial chairs and the placing of grief close to a pretty view or flowers. Deep mapping seems like a good way to communicate these layers in which we experience a place.