The second exhibition we designed for the British Council at the Whitechapel Gallery in London (after the one on the history of the Venice Biennale) focuses on the 75 years of activity of the British Council in the field of visual arts and especially on the display of controversial work in politically tense situations. Keepthinking designed the layout of the exhibition, its graphic material as well as two maps. They are rather special maps.
The essential motivation for having a map was to visualise how the British Council fulfilled its role of promoting British Culture (and especially art) abroad. A map of the world with various size dots was the first thing that came to mind... but that was not quite enough.
The issue was that a conventional map would not be very effective in bringing to the surface the amount of work that over 75 years has gone into acquiring works, curating exhibitions and displaying them in venues across the globe. The second and most important map (plotted on a panel 200 cm x 200 cm) attempts to show all this: a circular graph showing activities in various countries and continents and a web of connecting arcs, rendering every movement of an exhibition across them.
