Hand-drawn Hackney

Martin Usborne, Hoxton Square (detail). Pen and watercolour on paper © www.martinusborne.com 550 x 400mm

Hand-drawn maps by two Hackney artists will be displayed at the Museum of London as part of the Hand-drawn London exhibition, which will show a selection of original maps of the capital. Alexander Schmidt and Martin Usborne have both won a chance to be among the lucky few who will exhibit their drawings.

Schmidt will be displaying two of his maps, Subjective mapping – Hackney and a close-up of Broadway Market. After living in Berlin and Italy, the graphic designer settled down in Hackney three years ago and is now based in London Fields.

For this project, Schmidt spent a lot of time wandering around Hackney seeking inspiration: “I went for walks to look at houses, then went home and drew the map by memory from what I had just seen. It doesn’t have the accuracy of Google or Ordinance Survey, but these maps are a more personal projection of how streets in the neighborhood connect from one place to another.”

Martin Usborne has preferred to focus specifically on Hoxton Square, where he has been living for the past five years. The photographer was happy to exchange his camera for pens and watercolours: “When you draw, you are free to create a whole new reality and put more of your personality than in pictures. The map is a naive, child style drawing; it’s quite basic and tongue-in-cheek.”

Each of the eleven maps displayed represents an original picture of a Londoners’ relationship with his or her city. The amateur mappers tested the artistic potential of cartography by drawing their perception of the geographical reality they experience daily.

Hand-drawn London
Museum of London
150 London Wall, EC2Y 5HN
21 April – 11 September