The Map is Not the Territory: the Redrawing of the Border. How Unimpeded is Access to the Brazilian Border?

Abstract

Part of the dossier “America Civilization”, which sought multiple approaches (from the graphic reading of the territory, design and project to the historical, theoretical and conceptual approach) to investigate the meanings that this point of view has in the constitution of the graduate courses at Escola da Cidade, the cartographic essay “The Map is not the Territory” takes up part of the research and exhibition developed for the Brazilian representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018. “The Map is not the Territory” is based on the principle that traditional cartographic representations do not represent the complexity of territorial conditions. Although the result of political and historical decisions, it is impossible to understand the relationship between territories based only on borderlines. As an alternative, the essay seeks to read the frontier through lenses that point to the possibilities of exchange, not division.