One Future Post Volume 8: Mapping and negotiating power
Writer and curator Anish Gawande delves into the history of mapping and how maps can be used as powerful tools for community organising.
Curator Speaks
This letter enmeshes the curator’s fascination with maps with their sociopolitical significance as a tool for advocacy. Historically, mapping has been a tool for those in power to mark and expand their dominance. Today, maps are becoming tools marginalised communities use to invert conventional power dynamics. Mapping and other forms of data visualisation have, therefore, become integral to finding new ways of ensuring accountability and building community as a means to share knowledge and build networks of care.
The effervescent Anish Gawande has thoughtfully curated this volume of the newsletter. Anish is a writer and curator. He is the founder of Pink List India, the country’s first archive of politicians supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Gawande has an undergraduate degree in comparative literature from Columbia University and postgraduate degrees in intellectual history and public policy from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
Art Recos
Here is a specially curated set of art recommendations. Click on the image to know more.
DIY activity: Create your own custom map
Create your own custom map on Google Maps (feel free to use this same process with alternative software) and share it with friends! You can use these principles to create a custom map of nearly anything under the sun. Click on the image to learn how to do this.
Keep up with updates and highlights of our work since the last volume of One Future Post! All eyes here please!
One Future Fellowship 2024-25: The fellowship is now open to all women, queer, trans, gender non-conforming, and non-binary South Asian folks above 18 years of age. Scholarships and customisable EMI options are also available, so enable your social justice journey today.
Healing Liberation Project: Join us on a transformative journey this February that fosters safety and community and helps process overwhelming experiences. Enhance the connection with your body, navigate difficult conversations on the climate crisis, and unleash a liberated sense of creativity.
How to Share the World poetry book: Our acclaimed poetry anthology ‘How to Share the World’, combines the best poems with self-reflection activities to help you unwind and to kindle your creative spark. Claim it at a discounted price of INR 250, offer lasts until today.
Social Justice Lawyering Program: We are launching our first cohort-based leadership program for the year: Social Justice Lawyering. This is an intermediate-level professional upskilling program for lawyers, activists, community organisers and students. Through this fully online program, participants will develop the capacity to audit social movement strategies and practise trauma-informed, intersectional social justice lawyering. Apply by 7 February, 2024 to customise your zero-interest EMI plan and avail an introductory offer!
Alumni Community Engagement: The Alumni and Community Engagement Program aims to nurture our growing and thriving community at One Future Collective through an eclectic mix of community engagement activities hosted online and offline. Stay tuned for updates!
Voter toolkit: We're also excited to share a toolkit, developed by the Young India Foundation and shared exclusively for the One Future Collective Community by a valuable alumnus, Shefali Gupta. As citizens, it is our civic duty to vote, and the youth have played an important role in political movements such as the CAA protest, the India Against Corruption Movement, and others. Many young leaders also lead election campaigns, significantly contributing to reshaping politics. We encourage you to register to vote today and show up in large numbers on polling day!
Thank you for reading the eighth volume of One Future Post! We hope it made for a fulfilling read.
Feel free to share your feedback and suggestions for us in the comments and share this volume among your circles!