My favorite topic of conversation with people who relocate to Atlanta is to find out how they make sense of it. This is not an easy task in a city that pretty much moves around the clock and offers a cornucopia of things to do to keep you entertained and informed. With time though, newcomers gradually build their own experience of Atlanta through the places in the city where they live, work, and play. Some people fall in love with it forever, some for a while, and some can never get used to it.

This idea of making sense of a new place is fascinating because it forces us to wire our brain connections differently in order to map it. Over the past six months, I stumbled on three wonderful examples of people who, intentionally or not, made visible the process of mapping Atlanta or a space in Atlanta in creative ways…