Unlike the typical Google Maps interface, this map includes places like "Jezebel Heights," "Coventown," and "Spinsters Grove." Even though these places are unfortunately fictional, you can visit them through The Map, a massive textile sculpture on view in Manhattan right now.
This intricately hand-sewn textile sculpture, stretching to 21-by-12.5 feet, celebrates feminism as it re-imagines the life, legacy, and mythology of Mary Magdalene and her impact on women's lives. The Map addresses false narratives of Magdalene, charting the social, political, and psychic changes that have loosened the knots of history in Ireland, and traces an historical, mythological, and future cosmology that is fluid and full of possibility.
Irish artist Alice Maher created the work in collaboration with fellow Ireland native Rachel Fallon. Over the course of three years, the artists approached the subject through the lens of the medieval Mappa Mundi, using elements of the cartographer's practice as a device for their exploration. A text and soundscape by Sinéad Gleeson and Stephen Shannon titled We Are The Map accompanies the sculpture.
See it through September 29 at the Irish Arts Center (726 11th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen); tickets are free to reserve online.