Premiere: 2013 - Muzej sodobne umetnosti Ljubljana
Colaboration: Urban Kmet, Kai Simon Stöger in Jasmina Založnik
The term "mapping" has become a broad term used for a variety of purposes, including as a form of artistic training/practice. B-mapping approaches the notion of mapping from a slightly different perspective. It does not tend towards drawn maps of places, which are decisively shaped by the viewer's perception, but takes the body and its positioning and the way it is situated in space as a starting point.
B-mapping is an artistic project that allows for a collective negotiation of what is on the scales and what we want to build as a group. The creators of the game have been developing it for over 3 years, testing its structure with different groups in different contexts. In this way, we have been able to create basic tools that can be used in different contexts. But the project as a whole, with its open structure and different protocols, is also a tool in itself.
The project attempts to go beyond the established structures of two-dimensional drawing and brainstorming by bringing thoughts into space and allowing their positions in space to be played out. Typical of a tool such as B-mapping is the creation of a map that is highly, if not entirely, dependent on context, content and needs. A tool that can be extended, used, developed. It has a clear and solid starting point and can be adapted, shifted, developed according to individual needs and contexts. The idea is to make it easier, faster, more unexpected to connect, communicate and integrate different stakeholders: collaborators, institutions, societies. In doing so, it uses the different distinctions between a map on paper and a map as a process that is created or weaved out of our presences. Thus, the negotiation of and between positions in the map is more important than the "final" position of things. The constant shifting of positions does not diminish the goodness of the process of creating the map, at most it adds more goodness than the map created on paper.
B-mapping grew out of this field of aspirations. It can be a tool for planning, for finding a common denominator or synergies. It allows for the understanding of a situation from different perspectives and the finding of structures that avoid focusing only on a central aspect. It can therefore bring together different ways of structuring and contribute to the discovery of a new approach to a situation, to clarify for others again the vision of what could be a possible approach of this structure, of the roles of the actors involved, and at the same time it can refocus attention on uncertainties and how to overcome and work with them.
B-mapping is a project of the Nomad Dance Institute, which emerged from the first meeting of the Nomad Dance Institute at the end of September 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. It is a collaboration between Urban Kmet, Kai Simon Stöger and Jasmina Založnik. Since then, they have met in different cities, working with a wide variety of groups.
B-mapping influenced the creation of Duck Shaped Triangle, a project by Kai Stöger that started in 2016 and with which it shares dramaturgical tools.
B-mapping was used by Dejan Srhoj and Nina Božič in the workshop "Innovation leaders for courageous ideas – Eskilstuna Municipality, Sweden," in 2014 and 2015.
B-mapping was the first step of the research and project by Darko Dragicevic, Martin Sonderkamp and Jasmina Založnik, which turned into the performance installation Approximations, 2015.