France
ANNUAL ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM OF THE HISTORY COMMISSION OF THE FRENCH CARTOGRAPHY COMMITTEE
Friday 14th November 2025
INHA (Paris) – Salle Vasari
The History Commission of the CFC is organising a study day on ‘Cartographic exhibitions’ on 14 November 2025 at the Institut national d’histoire de l’Art (INHA) in Paris.
This one-day symposium is a continuation of the previous meetings on ‘Art and Cartography’ (2023) and ‘Cartography and Cinema’ (2024), in which cartography and its history were examined from the angle of their presence in modern and contemporary visual cultures. The aim of this new day is to consider the various aspects of the encounter between cartography and the general public.
Maps have long been exhibited, more or less permanently, in the galleries of major palaces and public buildings. Think, for example, of the Vatican Map Gallery or the world map room in the Farnese Palace in Caprarola. But it is not to these perennial cartographic settings, which are already well known, that this Study Day aims to focus its analysis, but rather on temporary installations.
Since the nineteenth century, cartography has been the focus of a great many temporary exhibitions, both specialist and more general. Like works of art or scientific objects, maps, globes, models, relief maps and observation instruments were considered worthy of public interest. Take, for example, the enthusiastic response to the exhibition entitled ‘Cartes et figures de la Terre’ [Maps and Figures of the Earth], presented at the Centre Pompidou in 1980. Exhibitions devoted to the history of cartography, or certain aspects of it, are regularly held at scientific gatherings (geography congresses or learned societies), at international fairs and, of course, in libraries, museums and archive centres.
We need to look at these cartographic exhibitions from a number of angles:
– What were the projects, motivations and objectives of the designers of these exhibitions?
– What were the scientific, artistic and political contexts in which these exhibitions were organised?
– What cartographic documents were chosen? According to what criteria? What were their aims?
– What was the chosen scenography? How have these choices evolved over the years? Are there any links, or even analogies, with the history of art exhibitions?
– How many people attended the exhibition? What type of audience, if any? How did the press react to the exhibitions?
Contributions may address all or only some of these questions.
Practical details
Proposals for papers (approximately 1500 characters), accompanied by a short bio-bibliography, should be sent before 10 May 2025 to the following address: catherine.hofmann@bnf.fr.
The selection committee will meet in mid-June and will announce the results of the call for papers in early July.
The papers selected will be published in an issue of the journal of the French Cartography Committee, Cartes & Géomatique, in 2026.
Contact Information
Catherine Hofmann, map curator at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris)
Jean-Marc Besse, head researcher at CNRS and EHESS
Contact Email
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