Mapmaking and Storytelling

In this thesis, I analyse artists’ books and fanzines which were created for the exhibition ‘Subjective Maps / Disappearances’ in 2013 at the National Gallery of Iceland. The event was organized as part of the artistic research undertaken within Little Constellation, a contemporary art network with a focus on 17 geo-cultural micro-areas and small states of Europe such as San Marino, Iceland, Monaco, Gibraltar, and Cyprus. These areas and their communities are mostly understudied, systematically neglected in comparative analyses, and often only known through "uncertain" stereotypes such as tax havens, smugglers, or duty-free shopping centers. For the exhibition, 37 artists born or based in these areas exhibited artists’ books and fanzines that will become part of the permanent public collection of the San Marino National Gallery. A selection of the works was analyzed through a rhythmic analysis, taken from Henri Lefebvre, allowing the examination of time and space together. Due to their structure, artist's books are a particularly suitable genre to convey space-time narratives. The materiality and the intermediation experienced in their reading allow times and spaces to emerge in layers. In line with the whole Little Constellation project, the books could be considered ‘research for art and design’ on everyday practices in the small areas, where the thinking is embodied in the artifact. With this study, I contribute both to the discourse on how to analyse artists’ books and fanzines (produced as artworks) and to the application of rhythm analysis to the interpretation of contemporary art.