Inspired by our co-creative work with (among others) Sofie Louise Dam, we have developed a co-creative mapping method as an arts-based research tool for generating experiential, relational, and tacit knowledge that is often difficult to access through conventional qualitative or survey-based approaches. The method enables participants to externalise lived experiences and relationships by translating them into shared visual representations. Inspired by traditions in critical cartography and arts-based inquiry, the approach treats mapping not simply as a way of representing reality, but as a way of organising knowledge and shaping meaning.
Every map tells a story. By making the process of map-making collective and reflective, co-creative mapping opens space for alternative narratives, overlooked perspectives, and productive “silences” to emerge.
How the Method Works
Co-creative mapping combines structured analytical prompts with creative drawing and speculative world-building. Participants work through a series of staged mapping actions that typically include:
- Drawing landmasses and bodies of water that represents the setting, programme, or organisation being explored
- Plotting areas and infrastructures that shape the context
- Adding key agents – people, groups, animals, technologies, or other actors
- Tracing movements, interactions, and relationships over time
- Presenting and collectively reflecting on the resulting maps
These steps balance creative openness with methodological structure, ensuring both imaginative exploration and analytical coherence.
What the Maps Do
The resulting maps function both as data and as analytical artefacts. They make patterns of collaboration and exclusion visible, expose boundaries, hierarchies, and silences as well as flows and tensions between formal structures and lived practice.
In complex social, organisational, or institutional settings, the maps help surface dynamics that are often difficult to articulate in interviews or written responses alone.
Learn More
To learn more, you can:
- Watch a short animation introducing the co-creation process that resulted in the method
- Read our open-access article on the arts-based co-creation behind the method
This work is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the University of Copenhagen.