Menders Directory
Mend Map and Directory of Menders
If you know me from Instagram, you might have heard of this project. It's been a long LONG time coming, and has, tbh, not yet come. I will spare you the awful techie details, but this does now exist even if not quite ready for you.
It is...
- A world map on which all mending projects are marked
- A free listing service for menders and mendees* to connect
- A research tool and practical resource for interested parties of all kinds
- A perpetual work in progress, by design
- A hub for all kinds of mending and repair, from darning to conservation
- Crowd sourced, democratic, though curated
* A mendee is someone for whom the mender mends
I really want to center it on a South-up map, as seen here... This is proving unfeasible. (Scroll down to read about it.)
ANYway, there it is, the beginnings of a thing. If you wish, you may already insert yourself on the map! I welcome your thoughts and comments--but please realize I do know how ungreat it is so far.
Here is the Upside-down:
The South-up map is a literal reorientation that invites an epistemological one. The conventional cartographic orientation is just that: a convention, dating from the early modern era and the so-called Age of Exploration, when oceangoing Europeans learned to use magnetic north to navigate. This map visually resets the harm of historical periodization, in which continents and countries were "discovered," rather than invaded, colonized, and exploited, their authochthonous peoples subjected to genocide. Its arresting strangeness invites reassessment of narratives privileging wealthier nations in "the global north". It is visible mending of cultural bias.
Watch this space...