Web Exhibition – ATLASES: Poetics, Politics, and Performance

Abstract

ATLASES: Poetics, Politics, and Performance is a web exhibition of atlases from the Special Collections and School of Geographical Sciences of the University of Bristol (http://uobatlases.net/). It includes atlases produced between 1570 to approximately 1970.

The exhibition consists of four thematic parts. Renaissance Theatres contains famous and les famous atlases produced between the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, such as atlases by Ortelius (1574), Camden (1610), Speed (1611) and four atlas tomes by Blaeu (1645). Rhetoric of Truth contains geological and archaeological atlases from the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. However, Rhetoric of Truth is not only limited to renaissance, but it also encompasses first computer generated atlases, e.g. Atlas of Breeding Birds in England and Ireland (1976) and others. The Colonial Gaze focuses on atlases applied in colonial projects and land exploitation in Africa and the Caribbean Islands, as well as in circulation of race theories in Europe and North America at the end of the 19th century. The last part, National Identities and Conflict explores the role of atlas as a powerful instrument for visualizing conflicts and shaping territorial-political ideas in the 20th century.