Making maps move: Reflections on Lle Llais animation workshops

What can you see on the map?

I see a man falling over

What could that be?

Danger

Is that where you think it should go?

No it should go over there, because the waves are really big and the path get slippery by the sea

Ok, can you move it where you’d like it to go? You can pick the symbol up and drop it where it should be.

The child moves the symbol, and has begun creating their own map of Anglesey.

Maps have usually been shown to children to impart information that they can interpret and consume in different ways.

But at our animation workshops, run as part of Lle Llais at Newborough beach, our invitation was to move things on the map, to interact with what other children have made, to disagree and challenge where symbols should go and, to make their own symbols. This disrupts a traditional view of the map as a one way flow of information. The map has come alive. It is something to play with, to design, to own, to spark discussions, to creatively express, and to share with others.

We were inviting children and young people to create animated symbols for maps, to collectively create a key, and a library of symbols for young people. This was a new way for them to interact with maps; we asked each group and many had done animation or worked with maps before, but none had done the two together.

As the animation workshops progressed, children experimented with more and more ways to personalize their contributions to the map. Two girls created a photo sequence which began with them standing far apart facing each other, slowly taking steps toward each other, and ending with an embrace. This was an animation about friendship, and when placed on a map could be read as different parts of the island coming together. Across the project, we had been trying to find ways that children can put themselves on the map, and it was striking to see these girls literally placing themselves on the map. It represented something that maps don’t usually show us; relationships between people, and their relationships to places.

Some drew playful animations of a watermelon or hamburger being eaten, showing a) their favourite places for food and b) how voraciously they ate there. Others made animations that looked very similar to each other, but sometimes represented quite different things. For example, we had multiple football fields, where one boy’s football pitch meant ‘calm’ as that’s how he felt when he played, while others intended it as a specific pitch, Plas Arthur, where they enjoy spending time with friends. We discussed how amenities, like sports pitches can, and often need to, offer so much more for young people than they are designed to.

Children also added text, which we had not specifically invited them to, and we saw a range of English and Welsh text. Sometimes this simply stated what the symbol was e.g. ‘nature’, or ‘nofio’ (swimming), others more specific aspects they enjoyed e.g. ‘butterfly and backstroke’, ‘having fun’. Text was used playfully and as a way to add meaning beyond their mere definition. Words could flash up at different speeds or appear sequentially. A pair of boys created a sequence of jagged, chaotic capital letters flashing up repeatedly to spell out ‘DANGER’ alongside bolts of lightning.

Narratives came up in many animations; a cave where someone is surprised by a bat, and then runs out, terrified, pursued by the bat. A crab looks over and runs towards you, its face filling the final frame. Another crab opens and closes its claw to say hello, and in a playful mix of stop motion and drawn animation, a cartoon tree falls and knocks over a child, to symbolise a dangerous place.

There was a quiet, thoughtful atmosphere that descended in most groups as soon as they’d started drawing their animations. Those who decided to take photos often had a more excitable approach as they were starring in their animations or physically moving their models around for each frame, while those who drew, became absorbed in the details and in making continuous changes to their images. While we knew that this activity would benefit from a longer time slot, we were impressed with how detailed children’s animations became after just ten to fifteen minutes.

We also found that through making these maps, many children shared personal stories that they may not have otherwise shared. Mapping can bring out really personal stories in a careful and gentle way. It offers us a fragile opportunity to listen to these, to value and hold them with care.

This video shows one of our workshop participants talking us through a map he made using symbols created by his peers.

Due to internet issues onsite, we weren’t able to immediately show children their symbols on the map. This felt like a shame, but also meant that there was cross-pollination between groups, and gave a taste of what a communal map would look like, when contributed to by young people from different places on the island. We uploaded other groups’ symbols to maps for groups to play with and place in different locations, which meant that children were interacting with each other’s symbols and creating a map that spoke to each other in different ways. After one group placed a football pitch in Llangefni, and a burger on Holyhead, other groups immediately recognised these as Plas Arthur and McDonalds. The map reflected a shared culture or knowledge of the area. While maps can be useful for helping newcomers to an area, these maps have also been used in a way that is specific and allows local young people to reflect their experiences to each other, which might not always be understood or immediately clear to those who are not familiar with their area or experiences.

After each round of workshops, we are left with more research questions to follow in our next stage. What comes from a map that is for local people? Is there a way of making maps that young people can read better than adults? Or that can mean something different to them? By making these maps, they are creating their own shared language, creating and reflecting culture. This cultural, artistic representation of Anglesey can exclude others by including children, moving us away from the standard format that you can learn to then understand any traditional map. Here, the rules of the map might change as you go from one animated map to another; here a flashing acorn might mean forest, there it might mean nature more generally, in other parts it might signify a specific place of meaning for someone…by bringing in the particular and opening up to interpretation, are we creating more clarity in the map for children and less for adults?

This activity opens up the map as a contestable, interactive space, making explicit that it is always designed by someone or by a set of people, and that no map is neutral. The places we move between in our day to day lives also move us in different ways. So, why not add in a dancing crab and your favourite place to walk your dog? Let’s make our maps move, and reflect how alive these places are with nature, friendship, adventure, and reflection.