The Hand Drawn Map Association is a website and physical archive founded to collect directional maps that people draw for one another. Over time, this has expanded to include a wide variety of maps, diagrams, doodles, and other drawings that document personalized experiences of places both real and imagined. The archive currently includes over 400 digital assets and more than 350 works on paper.
I began the project as a website in 2008, when the increasing use of smartphones was quickly eliminating the need to draw personalized maps. I wanted to create a place where evidence of this potentially disappearing practice could be archived, discussed, and honored. Since then, as the founder of the Hand Drawn Map Association, I have continued collecting drawings and sharing them with others through publications, exhibitions, workshops, and the website.
From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the HDMA
