This Is My City

My project This Is My City is based on the fact that even though urban spaces are shared by people from all walks of life, each person has their own unique perception and knowledge of the environment. No two people define or experience a given environment in exactly the same way. During this project I wanted to explore how the young people of Espoon keskus see their surroundings and what their mental maps look like.

I collected the maps by spending time at Entresse library and talking with the kids about mental maps and urban spaces. I then asked them to draw me their map i.e. what places they know and use in Espoon keskus. It turned out that some maps were surprisingly similar to each other — and that some were wildly unique. A couple just highlighted Entresse shopping mall and the train station. Below is a sample of the different maps:

After a couple of days spent at the library I had a stack of handdrawn maps, which I then scanned. I inserted thescanned maps into a map/brochure template I had made with Photoshop. I printed the maps at Print Lab and folded them to look like real tourist maps of Espoo. In spoof advertising style I had designed the covers, colors and fonts to look like the real thing. See the cover below:

With a stack of 50 spoof tourist maps (5 x 10 unique maps) I returned to Espoon keskus and spread the work around the area. The library's brochure shelves proved to be the best spot, and the maps really fit in, looking like the real thing — diluting the line between personal and private environments. I also talked with a couple of café and shop owners and left a pile of maps at counters around the area's shopping malls. Below are some photos of the maps left around Espoon keskus:

Hopefully people will pick the maps up and get to thinking how their environment is really seen by its young residents. As a whole, the private maps work together to build a picture of what Espoon keskus is really used for. These maps aren't an official view of how the city wants itself to be seen. They are the real thing. Spugekalliot and all.

sounds

These past few days I've been collecting sounds from a family with then 1 year old baby, natural sounds from the outside, and songs.

Tomorrow I will go to the library and record the fairytales. Hope people aren't too shy.

Now the posters are on the walls. There's altogether 10 of them in different places..schools, old people house, library, sports places etc.



Today I was checking some results already...I'm quite impressed.

New ideas

Today we tested our small papers with the question "ask something". The test revealed that it is way too abstract. People got really confused and just wrote something like "why is this happening to me". We wanted something more concrete.

The idea about the pieces of paper started to feel not good. There is a huge poster in front of the elevator that goes to Kipsari in where people have wrote expectations of the new Kipsari look. That idea was actually working. People can also read what other people wrote and it's interesting to look at. So we decided to change the small papers to huge posters.

We will try to bring the posters with pens attached to them in the local schools, the library, Entresse, swimming hall, where ever we can. The idea is to get different groups of people to answer the question "what would you like to come here more?" (i'm not sure how to translate this in english, the question would be "mitä haluaisit tänne enemmän?" in finnish"). The posters would be there for 1 week.

I think the interesting point in this is in the differencies/similarities of what different groups of people will say.

We were also thinking that in the end the posters would be exhibited somewhere next to each other, or some ideas would be projected.