“Map of Toronto” by Jenny Beorkrem

Parkside Student Residence
111 Carlton St, Toronto, ON

While we often regard maps as objective representations, they are in fact laden with subjective views of the world. Borders and boundaries are constantly in flux and artists use cartographic representation to tell wide-ranging stores about identity, social, cultural, or political networks. By delineating the topography and boundaries of the seen and unseen world, maps assure us that nowhere is unreachable and anywhere is traversable. Rather than limiting possibilities, they expand them.

“Map of Toronto” by Jenny Beorkrem

Parkside Student Residence
111 Carlton St, Toronto, ON

While we often regard maps as objective representations, they are in fact laden with subjective views of the world. Borders and boundaries are constantly in flux and artists use cartographic representation to tell wide-ranging stores about identity, social, cultural, or political networks. By delineating the topography and boundaries of the seen and unseen world, maps assure us that nowhere is unreachable and anywhere is traversable. Rather than limiting possibilities, they expand them.

Knightstone placed the typographic neighborhood map of Toronto in the Dining Hall of Parkside Student Residence – the social heart of the building – to interlace the internal student population with the wider Toronto community and stimulate the residents’ natural curiosity to explore the City’s local neighbourhoods. This piece by Jenny Beorkrem was blown up and printed on metal then installed on exposed concrete to create an urban connection between the streets of the City and the brutalist architecture of the period in which Parkside was constructed. The map was deliberately split around a door way at the topographical location of Parkside Residence.

About Jenny Beorkrem

Jenny Beorkrem is a Chicago based designer and founder of Ork Posters. Jenny is the creator of the original city typographic neighbourhood map series offering over 25 different city and country maps. www.orkposters.com