Kamila Dzhavatova

Spatial Story

I have long been interested in maps not only as representations of space, but as ways of thinking about it. My own spatial story began in Moscow, where I grew up surrounded by the scale and density of a vast metropolitan centre. Later, living in Oslo and travelling across Scandinavia introduced me to another geography: long distances, small settlements, peripheral places, and landscapes where connection, or its absence, becomes part of everyday life. Eventually, my work with Nordregio brought me to Stockholm, where these experiences became questions about how places develop, connect, and change.

Moving between these geographies made me aware of the distance between the map and the territory. On a map, regions appear continuous and equally present, while lived space is rarely so even. Some places are shaped by movement, investment, and anticipation; others by departure, distance, or the traces of what once was.

This tension draws me to regional development, particularly uneven development. I am interested in how places can exist within the same geographical moment while seemingly belonging to different times. Development does not arrive everywhere at once. It creates new connections, leaves traces behind, and sometimes leaves places waiting for futures that never quite arrive.

Working with maps has made this question especially compelling to me. Maps can reveal patterns of connection and inequality while making an uneven world appear coherent, and I am interested in how they can make these differences visible.