@Studio Community

Co-mapping the Protest – Workshop in Delhi

BLURCK

04 Aug 2026 • 3 min read

Counter-mapping is a method of documenting time and space in narratives that are often not dominant and are even attempted to be erased. It captures stories of places that never make it to official documentation and hence are rarely available when scholars, planners, and policy-makers engage with geographies. Archiving experience, especially in times of erasure thus becomes an act of activism. It encourages a critical reflection of an event/instance/problem beyond the conventional ways. When done in groups it also elicits an empathy towards the lived experiences of one’s co-mappers and forges a deeper understanding of our collective connections to the spaces we occupy.

The past weekend was a rather special one at BLURCK’s Delhi office when about 20 people gathered for a co-mapping workshop to document what they experienced at the recent Jantar Mantar protests demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Lakhs of people came together at the site, millions had access to the space by virtue of social media. Soon after the protest was called over, the walls of the protest site was wiped and painted over to remove any signs of dissent. Archiving the space as it is fresh in memory becomes crucial.

The workshop started with a short introduction to countermapping as a method, followed by a discussion on what could be the potential metrics that could be used to channel our lived experiences onto the maps. We divided oursleves into 4 groups, each one employing a different mapping technique, a distinct artistic expression, and varying degrees of detail. The maps with their concept notes are as follows:

Titled – ‘Disjointed Unity’, this map traces how everyone had a different experience of the protest. Some common threads with contrasting intentions that unknowingly connected the masses. Some positive, some negative, some sinister.

This map documents the Jantar Mantar as well as the personal spaces of the participants beyond the protest site and how they were getting impacted. It traces how emotionally so many people came together towards a common goal (center). Figurative in space, this map reflects the various aspects that form a recipe for such a united movement.

Titled – ‘How many ideologies will you stop?’ the map reflects on the multiple ideologies spread throughout the protest site. Collective narrative resulted because of a compounding effect for people who came in support of the bigger picture. Agencies and infrastructures like barricades, police, and at times even media that were trying to stop this massive crowd are indicated in space.

Despite the paranoia of ruling regimes, protests amalgamate the moving, chaotic forces against the straightjackets of the system. This map attempts to represent the ‘we’ (both collective and individual). Closed metro stations, tea stalls under the watchful eyes of the cops, tear gas trucks – peculiar and disjointed experiences are mapped to elaborate that some were left out while some became the face.

Above everything the workshop felt like a space to gather our thoughts around the protests which in many different ways have shaped the current political climate of the country. In navigating the space to make a map of the site, somewhere all of us ended up navigating through our complex emotions, viewpoints, and responses to the protest.

Photographs by: Sarthak [@serene_shutters]

Workshop facilitated by: Bhavya [BLURCK]

Cartographers: Arnav, Gauri, Kaafir, Kajal, Kamiya, Lakshita, Mansi, Pranay, Prateek, Priyanka, Ritwika, Riya, Sarthak, Shaswatee, Shubhangi, Yash

Co-mapping the Protest – Workshop in Delhi

Let’s Connect

Give us a call, send us an email, or meet us for a cup of chai. Let’s get together to create something new.