According to Carla Taban (2013), the term ‘atlas’ refers to an “art historical cum visual culture methodology designed and used to study the relationship between images (as well as...their rapports with discourses)”. Previously representing a hegemonic instrument for political control, the atlas is now rethought by researchers and artists as a possible tool for civic autonomy capable of bringing hidden mechanisms underlying our global political system to light. Indeed, as both an object of representation and a visual method, the atlas is able to converge aesthetic and activist imaginations and practices. This development has not been widely recognized in the existent literature yet.
In this paper, I aim to explore two main questions: what can visual scholars learn about critical knowledge production and representation through a focus on the atlas and the curation it involves? As a possible appendix to the previous question, to what extent can the atlas constitute a site of resistance through its reconstruction of histories outside of dominant narratives and/or its questioning of current power structures? I will do so through a focus on the work and vision of antiAtlas of borders, a group of researchers, artists and experts seeking to address the contemporary mutation of borders and spaces through exhibitions, publications, artworks, and seminars, among others. The name ‘antiAtlas’ itself of course leads to questions of resistance: what types of tensions and oppositions does this paradoxical resisting of its own form create? This question will be addressed in terms of visuality and countervisuality (Mirzoeff 2011). In Mirzoeff’s reading, visuality legitimizes and normalizes existent authority structures and systems while simultaneously concealing elements disrupting this landscape. Countervisuality, on the other hand, consists of attempts to critically rethink visuality, leading to the question whether the atlas is a possible site for practices of resistance or not.
