Sunday, December 14, 2008

Map Rambles - a gift

Map Rambles were created in March 2007 by Andrew Stuck and Tim Waterman, who had an inspiration prompted by visits to the London: A Life in Maps exhibition at the British Library.


Map Rambles are self-guided walks that incorporate themes inspired by events and exhibitions, in which participants explore areas and come together to discuss and map their experiences.

The concept of a Map Ramble is really simple - bring people together to ramble through a neighbourhood in small groups, exploring and interpreting the environment around them. Issue them a sketch book and pencil, and encourage them to take photos and to draw what they find on their ramble. Bring them together after a couple of hours, and offer them the opportunity to draw a collated map of their routes and discoveries.

Map Rambles proved popular, and won acclaim from Time Out, and four such rambles were organised by Andrew and Tim and their partners, Mel and Jason. You can read about those Map Rambles by following the posts to this blog.

Our intention, right from the beginning, was to pilot the Map Ramble concept in 2007 and gift it to the world, so that anyone could use the format to get people together to explore and interpret their surroundings. So it is over to you....

Increasingly however, we are being asked to tell the story behind Map Rambles and to resurrect them once again.