I got a whole box of maps from a library that was throwing them out.

At the same time, I was researching the Rangipo desert. The map investigations turned into a series of artist books about a woman on a solo bicycle journey through Rangipo desert. Looking through the National Library digital image archive and Papers Past was one way for me to get into its rich history during lockdown. The images became about how the present lies on layers of the past, and how the past is made of our memories, and in that way, its made of language.

The images are about orientation, too, and naming. I got interested in the beautiful marks on the maps that represent different kinds of land. It made me think about representation and mark making, and how certain marks are word-forms, and certain marks could be word forms, or, even if they’re not distinct words, they’re communicating something that can be more subtle, sophisticated, looping and repeating than a mere string of text. How all marks are expressing something, and in that way, any mark is language.