You might ask - 'What is a Map Festival?'
Well, are you here to stay? Or are you here to go?
It Could Be This...
The Festival of Mapping is whatever your answer is to this initial question. 'You Are Here'. There's no denying that one. 'But why?' How did we all end up where we are? What were the chances but more likely what are the processes at work that make this happen? So, we are spending June 2005 mapping that because we are trying to answer the question 'What The Fuck Is Going On?'. But useless facts and figures won't get us anywhere as we swap their big map for our random fragments. We are history but we want to be NOW. So we will map our collective anti-politics of the everyday, fun economies of poetic gesture, insurrectional minutiae, time thievery, fears against desires, chaotic and autonomous practice.
Or It Could Be This...
It's all free. It's a festival. It's probably got something to do with maps. But not maps like a bloody O.S Map recreation of terrain we know and feel quite differently. Not maps like a Booth map of where the poor live. Not maps like how to drive A.Q.A.P from Sandown to Gleneagles. More like maps like the mental puzzles we write in our heads walking from the shops past the dodgy corner to the Reference Library. Or the chart we draw in memory as we passed from being a junior SWP member to joining Walsall Anarchists to founding Wessex Psychic Geographerz. Or the chance uncovering of a local radical past that informs the future in the present moment. A map like the hand-drawn one that details the easiest route to the Pensacola, Florida beer dumpster or the one you drew to not forget where you live. So, you can see, we are mapping How We Live towards how we want to live and love. That's what this is all about and we will do it together because we can and because we can't help it. It's free and it's a festival.
Map Fest contact: winterwind@hellokitty.com
Map Fest 'Invitation to Participate': https://www1.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/03/306345.html
What is the 56ª Infoshop
It's a long-established social centre in the Elephant and Castle, South London. Squatted from 1991 to 2003 but now operating under due conditions of tenancy, it functions as a bookshop, drop-in open-access archive, meeting point and all round good example of what can be done. Always entirely unfunded and volunteer-run, the Infoshop demands and creates the extension of autonomy into our daily individual and social life. To get a flavour of this space, what we have done and what we continue to do here (and the prevailing wind behind the Free Festival of Mapping) you can find us -
56ª Infoshop
56 Crampton St Walworth SE17
Thu 2-8 / Fri 3-7 / Sat 2-6pm
Tube+Bus > Elephant + Castle / Kennington
OPENING NIGHT:
· Friday 3rd June:
'YOU ARE HERE buy why?' Opening Night.
Your intro to the whole Map Festival - bring your maps for exhibition, see what's up, get involved, meet us, drink beer, eat food, make plans and plot. The full programme will be finalised for this night. You can check out all the latest Map Fest mania.We'll probably be just chillin' and hanging out with anyone who comes down interested, exited, cynical, confused, raving, mappy...maybe a late night bike ride for bagels, maybe a clambour onto a roof? Maybe a wander around the park at midnight..something. Keep yourself on this web site for updates on the Opening Night. 56a - 7pm
Here's a Quick Summary...
> OPENING NIGHT:
> EXHIBITIONS:
The Map Room / Happening Histories / Santiago + Walworth / Precari-Punx / Radical London Chart
> WALKS:
Subterranean Southwark / Map Text Game / The Obelisk History Attack / Squat Sector / Mapping St Mary Newington / Kennington Park Common-ication / Camberwell to Ladywell
> TALKS + DISCUSSIONS:
Battle of The Beanfield / History No! The Future / Urban Farming Free Food /Israel/Palestine: The Map
> PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY:
Psychogeography Is Bad / Oranges and Lemons Pesach / Crossbones Monthly Memorial
> MUSIC NIGHTS:
SkumFest 56a Benefit / Free 'Free' Free Punk Afternoon / CityField Experimental Space+Music
> EATING + DRINKING at The Map Festival:
Thursday 56a Drink / This Shop Could Be Your Life Caff
> RANDOM STUFF:
Dates as yet unplanned