While completing this week’s QGIS readings, I initially struggled to identify practical applications for the software within Art History. I think this difficulty was partly because the readings lacked visual examples showing how mapping transforms data into meaningful visualizations. Once we began working directly with QGIS in class, however, I developed a much clearer understanding of how digital mapping can support art historical research.

This became especially apparent during Dr. Greets’ seminar on Tuesday night, when we discussed Clio and examined a digital humanities project developed using research from one of her books. The project mapped Latin American artists in early twentieth-century Paris, documenting where they lived and where their work was exhibited. Artists’ locations were color-coded by country of origin, while maps from different years let users trace changes over time. Selecting individual gallery locations also provided access to photographs of artworks and historical exhibition images. Seeing these different forms of information brought together geographically helped me understand how mapping can reveal relationships between artists, exhibition spaces, national identities, and artistic communities that may be less apparent through text alone.

Dr. Greets’ project was also particularly relevant to my group’s work on the 100 Years of Black Falls Church Project. Our project will use oral histories and Fairfax County records to document different aspects of Black community growth, resilience, expansion, and interaction. Mapping this information provides an opportunity to transform the research conducted by Dr. Oberle and Dr. Wendi Manuel-Scott into visualizations that reveal how these histories developed across particular places and over time. I am excited that our project can build upon their work while creating another resource for understanding the histories of Black communities in Northern Virginia and potentially encouraging further research into these communities.