Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic \u201cThere is no such thing as an innocent map,\u201d observes Philippe Rekacewicz in his catalogue essay that accompanies Diagrams, a new exhibition at the Prada Foundation in Venice.\u00a0A renowned cartographer, the Paris-born Rekacewicz is well aware of his medium\u2019s capacity to transform narratives for good and ill. His own work includes maps that illustrate the deaths of migrants as they bid for new lives in Europe. \u201cA map,\u201d Rekacewicz continues, \u201cis above all a social and political act \u2014 and therefore inherently subjective.\u201d\u00a0Curated by international architect Rem Koolhaas and his studio AMO\/OMA, the Prada show aims to consider diagrams in all their political complexities.\u00a0Alongside maps, the exhibition\u2019s myriad items include early 20th-century infographics by African-American sociologist WEB Du Bois highlighting racial inequalities; a 17th-century Chinese woodcut of the human circulatory system; and a 2008 map by AMO\/OMA themselves showing the top 10 study destinations for students from China and the US.\u00a0If this sounds a perilously broad field, it\u2019s deliberately so.\u00a0\u201cWe weren\u2019t trying to map the whole journey,\u201d explains OMA associate architect Giulio Margheri. \u201cWe were looking for patterns.\u201d\u00a0The show, Margheri says, has been themed around \u201curgencies\u201d including the body, the built environment, inequality, migration, representation of the world, resources, war, truth and values.\u00a0Rather than deliver an omniscient chronological narrative, Margheri says the aim was to \u201cdeliver moments and episodes\u201d. These are \u201cmade more powerful by the association between each other,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt was exciting to see how topics were talking to each other across time.\u201d\u00a0For example, in the section devoted to the human body, the Chinese woodcuts are juxtaposed with contemporary images. \u201cThe information we have about the body changes,\u201d observes Margheri, adding that in earlier times observation and dissection were the only forms of investigation as opposed, say, to modern-day radiography.\u00a0But, by and large, the body itself remains unchanged, making the similarities between such images as illuminating as the differences.Primarily, diagrams are platforms for information. \u201cSome look boring,\u201d admits Margheri. \u201cBut the minute you study them, you get another layer of understanding.\u201d This is certainly true of an 1869 print charting Hannibal\u2019s journey from Spain through southern France and across the Alps into Italy by French civil engineer and infographic pioneer Charles Joseph Minard. Consisting of a beige band wobbling through almost featureless white space \u2014 save for place names, hair-thin pen strokes delineating rivers, and a few hatched lines signifying the Mediterranean \u2014 it reveals nothing at first glance of the Carthaginian general\u2019s death-defying rollercoaster as he, his army and his elephants fought off murderous Gallic tribes and confronted rockslides and precipitous descents.\u00a0But when considered in the light of those challenges, it becomes gripping.\u00a0Minard, who died in 1870, hit his stride in the 19th century, during what Diagrams\u2019 curators describe as the golden age of infographics. His diagram of Napoleon\u2019s campaign in Russia maps the retreat through Poland according to his army\u2019s staggering death toll and the sub-zero temperatures. As the men die, Minard\u2019s graphic beige band narrows, delivering a visual chill to chime with that eastern European weather.\u00a0Other pictures are equally revealing for what they conceal. Consider the diagram entitled \u201cUniversal Commercial History\u201d, a visual analysis drawn up by the Scottish engineer William Playfair in 1805 which traces the rise and fall of global wealth since 1500 BC against what he terms \u201cRemarkable Events Relative to Commerce\u201d.\u00a0Playfair, who is said to have invented the pie chart, includes moments such as \u201cRome founded\u201d, \u201cMahomet\u2019s Flight\u201d, and \u201cAmerica discovered\u201d. He never mentions slavery.With such a broad-brush approach, lacunae are inevitable. It is a shame that the work of Viennese social scientist Otto Neurath \u2014 who, along with his wife Marie and colleague Gerd Arntz, invented the Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) \u2014 is not on show. Based on pictograms, Neurath\u2019s Isotypes are an important forerunner to the digital vernacular (from emojis to icons) so familiar to us today. Nor does the exhibition include maps of the devastation of Gaza since October 2023, such as those made by investigative research agency Forensic Architecture, which are proving among the most critical diagrams of our time.It is important to note OMA\u2019s own connection to the lagoon city. In 2009, it began its redevelopment of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Dating back to the 13th century, though rebuilt in the early 1500s, the spectacular building had served as a public post office until it was acquired by Benetton and transformed into a luxury shopping centre.\u00a0Later leased to the LVMH group, it became home to the latter\u2019s Hong Kong-based retailer DFS. But late last year, the Fondaco abruptly announced its closure due to \u20ac100mn in losses.The Fondaco\u2019s plush interior, complete with gilded surfaces and red escalators, is a glossy yet troubling fusion of a 21st-century hypercapitalist skin stretched over a centuries-old skeleton. It would have been fascinating to see the diagrams for that renovation.\u00a0Yet the dynamics behind the Fondaco\u2019s demise, speaking as it does to glitches within tiny Venice\u2019s paradoxically global marketplace, do tie into one of the most fascinating diagrams in the Prada show.\u00a0Entitled \u201cThe World Model\u201d (1972), the monochrome flow-style chart connects subjects such as industrial capitalism, mortality, pollution and food production. Published as part of a report entitled The Limits to Growth for the Club of Rome, it illustrates the unsustainability of unchecked economic and population growth. For that provocative image and many others, this show is surely worth a visit.May 10-November 24, fondazioneprada.orgFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic \u201cThere is no such thing as an innocent map,\u201d observes Philippe Rekacewicz in his catalogue essay that accompanies Diagrams, a new exhibition at the Prada Foundation in Venice.\u00a0A renowned cartographer, the Paris-born Rekacewicz is well aware of his medium\u2019s capacity to transform narratives for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":290517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-290516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290518,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290516\/revisions\/290518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}