ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a presentation at the "Mapping Culture: Communities, Sites and Stories" international conference at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in 2014. Chris Perkins claims that performative mapping (mapping enacted through the body) may make ephemeral traces, but is often strongly embedded in cultural practice, coming to embody cultural values, and reinforcing particular practices. Applying a performative paradigm to art/performance making allows one to attribute degrees of impact or affect that legitimizes such work and opens it up to broader social and critical consideration. According to critical geographer Jeremy W. Crampton, the use of map has become more social, interdisciplinary, and performative, shifting its focus from the map as object to mapping as practice. A fundamental shift has also occurred in experimental performance, where the focus has veered from the normative conventions of the emblematic stage to the practice of performative mapping in found space.
