Bio-maps. The challenges of mapping the spaces of life

In 2016, Bouchra Khalili presented her “Mapping Journey Projectµ at the MoMA in New York. Addressing the issue of first-hand migratory experience, the artist challenged the forms of representation and visibility demanded by governmental cartography, and showed an alternative geo-political map defined by the precarious lives of stateless people. Drawing inspiration from Khalili’s work and following the common thread of migrant’s figure, this paper addresses the cartographic logic of dominant territorial imagination and its complex relation to the silenced geographies of marginalized subjects. Thus, while adapting the idea of mapping the sphere of life – bios – from Walter Benjamin, it focuses on the problematic link between the working space of the map and the representation of the spaces of life.