MAP-it
The question
MAP-it started from a different question than the one it is used for today: how do you map the collaborative practices of media artists, who works with whom, in what form and by what method. I then pulled the method mostly towards public space.
There the question sits differently: how do you get residents, civil servants and designers around one table without the loudest voice winning, and how do you get participants designing rather than reacting?
What we made
MAP-it is a participatory mapping method and toolkit: participants collectively build up a map using stickers, icons and free labels, negotiating along the way what should happen in a neighbourhood, project or organisation. The method makes power relations discussable and hands quiet participants an instrument too. The toolkit is open source: the manual and the icons are free to use, adapt and pass on.
What came of it
The method is used by research groups at KU Leuven, UHasselt and LUCA School of Arts, and by citizen collectives such as Les États Généraux de l’Eau à Bruxelles and CityMine(d). It sits under an open licence and still forms the backbone of my mapping and co-creation workshops today.
- Book · Dreessen, Huybrechts, Laureyssens, Schepers and Baciu, MAP-it. A participatory mapping toolkit (Acco, 2011). The first part belongs to the publisher; the manual at the back is openly licensed and can be downloaded below
- Article · Schepers, Dreessen, Huybrechts and Laureyssens, MAP-it: The Art of Designing a Participatory Mapping Method (2013), free to read
- Manual · How to organise a MAP-it session (PDF, 28 pp.), under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, so free to use, adapt and pass on