I produced,“Ecumenopolis” as a homage to my friend M.F.’s numerous travels and cultural research all over the globe.
“Ecumenopolis’s” unique design begins with its strutcture — it is constructed out of city maps, airplane, metro, museum tickets, and personal notes. I put together this collage with meticulous, individualized brush strokes. On canvas, I merges locations that are separated in the real world by thousands of miles into a singular piece.
My focus was not on the cities and countries, but more on subjective impressions of M.F. and his storytelling. Therefore, this map is his portrait.
Katharine Harman adds to this philosophical conversation in her work, “You are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of Imagination, “I sense humans have an urge to map – and that this mapping instinct, like our opposable thumbs, is part of what makes us human”.