I have often thought about urban space and our relationship to it, how we feel that we can take up space and how we experience this in a somatic way. To what extent can we expand into a space designated ‘public’ and how are those who are marginalised in terms of power expected to occupy physical margins.

I was recently introduced the concept of ‘counter-mapping’. I am excited by the idea of mapping against the grain and already use ideas of drawing onto and into existing maps through collage, cutting, sketching and myriad interruptive practices.

I learn of and witness how mapping as a colonial tool has, and continues to, maintain power through parcelling out and labelling of territories and how commercial, political and industrial hegemony can be challenged: urban environments have been fought over, but also playfully traced, reappropriated, reimagined and reconstructed through a range of practices: the restitution of names, storying, psychogeography, parkour .

Anything can be mapped. As I start to type here an Ai tool attempts to predict the trajectory of my thoughts, until I disable it, that is. Lining streets with flags is a kind of mapping, a shout, a staking of claims.

Emotional mapping is a seductive area for exploration: how does my OCD and anxiety map onto my occupation of space?  Some years ago, a psychic map of my route through a city might feature countless pauses, repetitions and returns: an uncanny map. How can I ‘map’ getting stuck, perceived obstacles and the inability to progress? Would this map be different now?

I drew what I called my Zone of Familiarity. When I moved here the change led to poor mental health spiking once again. To calm the surge of panic each morning, I did what I have always done, and mapped with my body the physical space that extends from my doorstep.

With a child that meant I could no longer go swimming or running alone, but for a while I pushed a pram, then a pushchair and now we walk together.

We know the quiet places and spaces, the seats where we can stop to read, the margins where poppies and ragwort sprout, the hollyhocks that rise triumphant though spiked iron fencing. We know the cats that will brush around our ankles, the sites where people will greet us, where shouting tannoys will interrupt us, the haven where souls for whom no space is welcoming will rest together in their parallel worlds. We know the urban margins where we feel a breath of wind from the horizon line and the centres where we may be, for moments, at the heart of things.