Patrick Jaojoco
Patrick Jaojoco is a Brooklyn-based writer, curator, and organizer who has worked in curatorial and communications roles at Art in General , Storefront for Art and Architecture, Fourth Arts Block, and others. He is currently developing The Decolonial Mapping Toolkit (DMT) in collaboration with historian Rebecca Manski, designer and urban planner Daleen Saah, and a broader collective of participants and advisors.
The Decolonial Mapping Toolkit is a participatory, online spatial platform that models the decolonization of the mapping process. It acts as both a geographic archive of historic injustices and activism and a platform for organizing interventions in public space. As a design initiative, the DMT fundamentally shifts users’ historical, cultural, and political perspectives. As a research and learning site, it encourages a participatory process of critical inquiry into site-specific, nonlinear histories. As a call to action, it de-centers the perspective of the traditional cartographer to prioritize ongoing public responses to colonial histories and their contemporary legacies.
Beginning with New York City and with the aim to establish a model for similar platforms around the world, the DMT assists in moving beyond the past, reconceiving the present, and effecting emergent visions of a decolonized future.