Sara Koopman and Jennifer Mapes

Jennifer Mapes and Sara Koopman, Kent State University :We will discuss the challenges and opportunities of making maps with and for the community after a tragic event. Next year is the 50th anniversary of the National Guard shooting on the Kent State University campus. We combine our expertise in cartography, planning and peacebuilding to share, collect, and map stories of community members who experienced this event. This project reorients the emotionally-charged and often-controversial narrative of the days surrounding the shooting. We create maps that are a palimpsest of stories of our community — collected in the past and present — that connect to campus and downtown locations.

An interactive map developed by the project can be found here