visited the exhibit?
#therethere
Do we shape our environment, or does it shape us? It’s a tricky question in the West.
Now more than ever, place is an evolving idea. New technology peeks into others’ lives and backyards, and we use these data and images to know our world better. But even new technologies can’t fully capture a place because so much of the intrinsic value is personal and variable.
Thought v. Stats
What we think we know about “there” may be drastically diferent from what numbers and data reveal. Cities in Utah collect and submit dozens of statistics each year, but that pattern of numbers only begins to speak to the poetry of a woven community — the thousand interactions that make this place your place, your roots, or just your roost.
Distance
The distance between perceptions illustrates that maps, legends, schedules, spreadsheets, and databases — plus hidden holes, shortcuts, stories, and that secret perch — all are part of defining and sharing a place. How we see and represent each “there” says as much about us as it does about the place itself. When we glimpse a place from a new angle, on an unusual scale, or through another’s eyes, we question our assumptions.
