Monday 7 October 2013

Attitude Maps.

I chose this map to show American attitudes as opposed to physical features. This map is one of more than 40 in the collection “The Atlas of Prejudice” by artist Yanko Tsvetkov. The artist describes his works in this collection as “cartographic caricatures ridiculing the worst excesses of human bigotry and narrow-mindedness”. Many of his other maps can be found here (x)


An awfully presumptuous view which seems to be held against the people of America is that they are bigoted and narrow minded, but this is only because their culture varies from ours in unexpected and ineffable ways. I think it is important to note that Tsvetkov is not American, he is from Bulgaria. Therefore the opinions which he is portraying in this work are ones which have crossed half the way around the globe to reach him via the internet and other media. This is interesting because many of these negative stereotypes are so known by Europe itself that they have almost become general stereotypes. Smelly Armpits falling right next to French Bread. The Americanisation of the european stereotypes is beginning to change the map, British tourists go to Spain and say "Hasta La Vista" as opposed to the far more common "Hasta Luego" because they associate the spanish language with American films in which they speak Latin American Spanish.

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