The University of Nottingham's School of Geography has loaned a selection of historical maps of Nottingham to an exhibition set in an imagined future version of the city.
The maps, on display at Nottingham Contemporary's 'Our Silver City, 2094', provide visitors with a historical context for the artworks, which imagine the city in 72 years' time. It features major new commissions by artists Céline Condorelli, Femke Herregraven, Grace Ndiritu, and novelist Liz Jensen.
Between the futuristic works, visitors will find several maps from the School of Geography's 85,000-strong collection, which includes an extensive holding of local maps, historic town plans, UK Ordnance Survey maps, World War I trench maps and German maps of the UK from World War II.
We are delighted to see these maps exhibited in such a thought-provoking exhibition. Their display highlights how maps are both artistic and scientific representations of the world around us.
We're thrilled to be able to include these incredible maps, they offer important context on Nottingham - the city in which the exhibition is situated - and provoke us to think about how we might use maps or generate new cartographies in the future.
Our Silver City, 2094 includes works by around 30 artists and collectives, including: Roger Ackling, Anni Albers, Armando D. Cosmos, Revital Cohen and Tuur van Balen, Isa Genzken, Charlotte Johannesson, Hannah Catherine Jones, On Kawara, Agnieszka Kurant, Nicola L, Vivian Lynn, Eline McGeorge, Sandra Mujinga, Anthony McCall, John Newling, Asad Raza, Ben Rivers, Connie Samaras, Cauleen Smith, Michael E. Smith, Jenna Sutela, Elisabeth Wild, Zara Zandieh, and Andrea Zittel. It will be accompanied by a specially commissioned novella by Liz Jensen.
The exhibition has been designed alongside Future of Futures – a year-long research, engagement, and artistic project led by young people – and draws upon conversations across Nottingham, with school children, climate scientists and geographers.
Details of maps in the collection can be found on the university's NUsearch catalogue and the School of Geography's map collection website
