Thought Experiments: Human Geographies

Thought Experiments is an ongoing speaker series, open to public, that brings leading artists, designers and visual thinkers to Philadelphia to discuss their work.

This Thought Experiment artist conversation featured Laura Kurgan, whose projects visualize complex political and social data to advocate for social reform.

Kurgan’s recent projects explore digital mapping technologies, the ethics and politics of mapping, new structures of participation in design, and the visualization of urban and global data. One project, “Million Dollar Blocks,” shows how the government spends more than one million dollars to incarcerate prisoners who live within a single census block.

Kurgan is Director of Visual Studies, Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab, and associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.Her book, Close Up at a Distance: Mapping, Technology and Politics has recently been published by Zone Books.

Cosponsored by PennDesign.