We are frequently asked for overly simplified answers regarding locational identity, despite the fact that most people are not defined by a singular place. This misrepresents and negates those with complex identities, such as multi-nationals, immigrants, and diaspora.

In this workshop we will collage together alternative personal geographies that are not limited to geographic reality and existing labels. This process will allow us to gain new insights about how people relate to places and spaces, reframing previous notions of locational identity with a more nuanced understanding of where someone is actually from. You’ll leave this workshop with a visual of own locational history that you can share with others to better represent yourself.

Creating and sharing these self cities will allow us to explore how collage and maps can serve both as a medium and a method. Using a thinking through making process, we will learn how fiction, subjectivity and self-investigation can serve as valuable tools in design and creative practices, as seen in works such as Subjective Editions, The Naked City and Invisible Cities.

• Utilize an iterative, thinking-through-making approach and understanding how self-investigation can be a useful design tool.
• Explore the use of maps and collage as both a medium and method.
• Understand how fiction can be used as a tool to create or strengthen a narrative.
• Generate new reflections about yourself and how you relate to locations that are important to you while getting to know other people in a unique, in-depth way.
• Viewing existing identity labels more critically and discerning where those labels fall short.

1. Introduction presentation and instructions
2. Making maps
3. Sharing maps

• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
• Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
• The Naked City by Guy Debord
• Subjective Atlases by Annelys Devet
• You are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katherine Harmon

Klara Blazek is a graphic designer, researcher and educator based in NYC. Her independent practice interrogates the tension between location and identity, questioning existing labels and creating communities of empathy. She advocates for self-investigation through design, specifically utilizing workshops as a research tool. Klara has run workshops with IAM and Livingmaps Network and is a part-time lecturer at Parsons School of Design. She is currently a freelance designer, previously working as the Head of Design at Centre For London, a think tank dedicated to making London a successful and sustainable city, leading their 2023 rebrand.

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