Charlotte Bourrus

Graphic designer Charlotte Bourrus graduated from the National School of Decorative Art in Paris. Since then, her research and creations have focused on themes relating to migration, contemporary history, geopolitics and travel. Passionate about publishing, she also finds and draws her inspiration from books, guides and stories. As a freelance designer, Charlotte primarily works with collage and illustration to create commissioned visuals. It was with collage, as the common thread of her approach, that she embarked on The Map project in 2011, for the thirtieth birthday of a close friend, by creating a small box which contained an image of Antarctica, dotted with items celebrating his trip. This one-off project developed so that today Charlotte devotes herself entirely to The Map. She has established a studio and team dedicated to it and develops collaborations with various brands and artists.

The creation of these maps requires surgically precise and meticulous work. The first step is to define the area and map it, and then to carry out extensive documentation and collection. Items found in books, on the internet or from personal photo collections are printed on paper, cut out, pasted, pinned. The composition of the maps, the arrangement of all the elements, goes beyond a decorative reading. Charlotte's commitment is political; her story is that of a traveller. The accumulated strata allow multiple readings of the work. The background, which is often made up of fabric patterns, and the needle-stitched elements, whether they accumulate or stand alone, create an imaginary narrative in which the viewer loses themselves. The artist takes us on her journey using a scale of 1:10,000,000.

Based on the principle of collection and anecdotes, The Map project tells the story not of a single world but rather of a multitude of worlds and their stories. Multiple and evolving, their intersecting narratives combine a map, the globe and history, with particular experiences and memories. The result: a cabinet of curiosities comprising world maps that can be dismantled at leisure, globes that can be contemplated as they sit under a glass bell like a snow globe, and site-specific commissions for window displays. Each piece recounts a unique story, a fable, a mythology about the place put under glass.

Magnae Chartae Exhibition