This is a conceptual map, exploring the emotional side of Native American history of the Los Angeles area land.
In my research, I discovered that silence was a large part of the Native American experience. Particularly when it came to what happened to them in the past. I found that they had to closet themselves as a culture, and physically blend in with the hispanic culture in order to keep from being killed. Because of this, their stories had been silenced and covered up, and their cultural identity was blurred. To honor their experience, and to shed some light into some of the silence, I chose to create an emotional map. With such an abstract subject, the mapping itself takes on a layered & fluid form.
I rendered the data with a sedimentary-rock inspired layout onto a watercolor layered base. The factual data is set in type. The emotional data is hand-written, and was acquired through personal accounts from today's living ancestors of the Tongva people (Los Angeles natives). I thought of their stories as whispers through time. The facts and emotions are meant to interact with each other, within the layers, along with the ghost-like images set underneath within the era layers.
The Map as a street mural, in an environmental context.