The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K Le Guin

When Ursula K Le Guin was writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which have never been exhibited before, to consider how her imaginary worlds enable us to re-envision our own.

Le Guin’s maps offer journeys of consciousness beyond conventional cartography, from the archipelagos of Earthsea to the talismanic maps of Always Coming Home. Rather than remaining within known terrain, they open up paradigms of knowledge, exemplified by the map’s edges and how a map is read, made and remade together.

The exhibition coincides with the release of The Word for World, a book copublished by Spiral House (a new imprint of Silver Press) and AA Publications. The book brings Le Guin’s maps together with poems, stories, interviews, recipes and essays by contributors from a variety of perspectives to enquire into the relationship between worlds and how they are represented and imagined. 

This exhibition is generously supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and has been made possible thanks to The Ursula K Le Guin Foundation.

Curators: Sarah Shin and Harriet Jennings 
Consulting Curator: Theo Downes-Le Guin 
Assistant Curator: Molly Evans 
Exhibition Design: Standard Deviation (Sammy Lee, Mark Lowe and Sarah Shin, with Federico Campagna, MJ Harding and Rain Wu) 
Graphic Design: Caspar Bailey 
Copyediting: Anna Lisa Reynolds and Max Zarzycki
Cyanotypes: Elena Andreea Teleaga 
Sign Writing: Louis Musk 
Exhibition Installation: Install Archive and AA Facilities 
Audio Visual: AA Audio-Visual Department