Place

How do we come to knowledge about a place?

I have collected maps and aerial photos. The map is a locator. It answers ‘where am I?’ But ‘where am I?’ inquires more than just ‘what is my physical location?’

Where am I? My vision is limited. I perceive walls around me, a ceiling above, floor below. Knowing where I am puts me here but it shows me more. It matches the immediate sensation of this place to all other places. It shows the wider world: all the places I could be, have been.

From above I can see the coastline, the mud edge and water. I know that at a specific place there I can smell mud, feel sandy loam underfoot, hear water, and see the coastline shifting grain by grain. From above I know that there are a million of these specific places and each rolls into the next. Walking the coastline I know the same. Here I am, this small speck along the wide stretch, part of the whole.