- 2006
- Average Country
- b/w offset prints
- W 67cm x L 80cm x H 67cm
- Average Country is a stack of posters, each bearing the image of a ‘world map’: the shape of each of the world’s countries is scaled to occupy the same relative area, which is then transformed into a transparent layer.
All layers are overlaid, making the centre of the image, which is shared by many countries, highly saturated in colour. Individual shapes are difficult to discern, yet this map’s uncertain borders and ambiguous shape can be understood to describe the territory of the average country.
Anybody may take away copies of the poster, thereby depleting the stack. The act of ‘sharing’ the image in this manner underlines the purported premise of the map — that of equality: equal territory, equal claim, equal access.
World Map Project
As a representative system, a map must be fictional by definition. The ongoing World Map Project focuses on this fictionality highlighting particular ideological biases. The series of maps reveals some of the epistemological, and, at times, material substructures that are intrinsic to geographical information.
Some of the World Map Project works employ a mathematically-exact scaling of the world’s countries, which is based on specific statistics. These maps are developed through a process that treats nation states as isolated entities; they statistically grow or shrink independently of their geographic neighbours. Consequently, ‘editorial’ decisions are required in order to determine the arrangement and relative proximity of individual countries and continents, often producing unusual geographical configurations.