Artistic Project: Roaming Without the Influence of a Map

Artistic Project: Roaming Without the Influence of a Map
This mapping project invites a reflective journey through the urban fabric of Riga, exploring the city beyond the constraints of traditional maps. The project challenges the conventional role of maps as navigational tools, questioning their impact on personal discovery, identity, and the emotional resonance between individuals and urban spaces.

The Concept

During my visit to Riga, I came across multiple city maps, each designed differently, each enticing me toward destinations that were perhaps never my goal. Maps provide structure, guiding newcomers to easily interact with urban spaces. Yet, I wondered—what if we abandoned maps altogether? What if we let the city guide us on its terms? Could we uncover something deeper, both about ourselves and our connection to the city?

By choosing to roam without a map, I embraced the chance to observe the city through unfiltered social phenomena, allowing its streets, architecture, and people to tell their own stories. During this journey, I began crafting my own map, embedding within it the symbols, emotions, and ideas that resonated with my historical consciousness. These codes reflected the interplay between myself and Riga’s urban elements, emphasizing the shared humanity and history that transcend geographical borders.

The Process

Getting lost in Riga became an intentional act of discovery. I allowed the city to reveal itself, listening to its stones, feeling the rhythm of its spaces, and immersing myself in its contrasts. The city's alleys, parks, roadblocks, and quiet corners became sites of introspection and dialogue. Every step uncovered new layers of contradictions—architectural styles from different eras, ethnic diversity, and cultural juxtapositions that felt both unsettling and beautiful.

Riga’s contradictions mirrored my own. As a Palestinian living in Sweden, I experience a daily inner conflict—gratitude for safety and stability juxtaposed with the pain of leaving behind an occupied homeland. Riga's paradoxes, shaped by its layered history and architectural diversity, resonated deeply with this personal duality.

Exploring Contradictions

Riga's architectural styles—Art Nouveau, Gothic, Soviet modernism, and neoclassical—speak of its history of conquest and survival under different rulers. These visual contradictions reflect human emotions and histories, much like my own inner conflict. The calm beauty of the city seemed on the verge of eruption, mirroring the emotional turbulence of exile and belonging.

As an architect, my work seeks to create spaces that foster belonging, security, and harmony. This project became a search for answers: can we reconcile contradictions and transform them into harmonious coexistence? Can nature, with its inherent adaptability and intelligence, act as a container for differences?

Inspiration from the Riga Biennial

While exploring these ideas, I visited the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), where I encountered Diana Lelonek’s Center for Living Things. Her work, which examines hybrid forms of nature through abandoned objects overtaken by plants, highlighted the transformative power of nature. In these hybrids, I found a metaphor for reconciliation: despite their disparate origins, these objects and organisms coexist in a balanced, interdependent system.

Reflections on Harmony

Riga’s urban contradictions and Lelonek’s work led me to imagine how cities—and people—might embrace their differences to form new, harmonious hybrids. This project is a meditation on the fluid relationships between humans, spaces, and nature. It redefines maps as personal narratives rather than prescriptive guides, celebrating the unpredictable and deeply personal process of getting lost and being found.

By rejecting predetermined paths, I discovered not just a city but also a deeper understanding of the emotional landscapes within and around me. This project is an invitation to explore, to reflect, and to create connections that transcend the barriers of maps and borders.