ABSTRACT
There has always been a close relationship between art and cartography; artists were traditionally employed to draw and embellish maps. Since the 1960s contemporary visual artists have increasingly been using maps and mapping strategies in their work as part of a post-modern idiom. The 'expanded field' started to define both arts practice and theory with ideas, which are traditionally geographical terms; notions of space, place and site. Artists creating work informed by the locale have turned artists into producers of new knowledge, of makers of alternative forms of data, and this has been a key factor in the changing field of geography itself. This chapter explores how and why artists use maps and mapping and where this trend in mapping in art is heading. The ubiquitous paper map and historical maps in particular, have proved a fertile ground of inspiration for many artists.
