Contributing artists for The Mad Maps Projects received the following list of cartographic prompts: reflective questions and creative exercises designed to help them to chart mad maps through their object. Whether you have a grocery store item handy or simply have your person, you’re welcome to play along! Simply select from the following options below.

CARTOGRAPHIC PROMPTS for CHARTING MAD MAPS

What is your relationship to mental health? What is your relationship to mental illness? What is your relationship to mental disability? How are these relationships different?	Who is your chosen family? How do/did they understand mental health?	Who raised you? How do/did they understand mental health?
Who are your ancestors? How did they understand mental health? How were they impacted by psychiatry?	What non-mental health related identities do you hold? How do these identities inform your understanding of mental health, mental illness, and/or mental disability?	Describe your bodymind (your body and your mind, together) without using medical, anatomical, or psychiatric terms.
Draw a map of your bodymind. Chart the following sensations: safety, joy, distress, connection, shame, calm, loneliness, connection, warmth, fatigue, courage, energy. Now, reviewing your map, what memory lives in each location you’ve charted? What other sensations and memories can you trace?	Make a mental health first aid kit. What objects can you include that inspire joy on a hard day? What foods or drinks bring you comfort? Are there books, articles, poems, or songs that bring you pleasure? Are there activities that bring you back to your body?	Write a children’s story for a future person who will share your experience of mental health.
Identify the mad-associated term in your product. What does this term mean to you? What kind of associations does it evoke? When did you first learn this term?	Look up the history and etymology of the mad-associated term in your product. Search the term on urban dictionary. Search it as a hashtag on social media. Search for it when you are next out and about. Do you notice any patterns?	Do you speak another language? What is the word for the mad-associated term in that language? How does the sound, meaning, or memories it evokes change?
Create a playlist of songs that include the mad-associated term used in your product.	Examine the packaging. Is it square or oblong? In a box, bag, or bottle? Cardboard or plastic? Smooth or rough in texture? What colors are used? What fonts or images appear?	Draw a map of your product. Be sure to include any topographical features of note.
Turn your product into a puppet. How does it move? How does it sound? Does it talk?	Create a list of interview questions for your product. Ask each question, and note any response.	Draw your product. Now draw it upside down.
Dance with your product. (Now dance with it upside down?)	Carry your product with you everywhere you go for a whole day.	Open the packaging of your product. What sound does it make? How does that sound feel?
Notice the color, texture, density, and scent of your food or drink.	How does your food or drink move? Are there other ways to move it?	How is your food or drink meant to be consumed? Are there other ways to consume it?
Does your food leave a mark when smeared on paper? Could it?	Taste your food. How does it sit on your tongue? How does it taste? What is the texture like?	Have you consumed this product before? What are your memories of this product? What do you associate with this product?
Look up a commercial for your product on YouTube, or google an ad. What do you notice?	How does it make you feel?	How do you feel?

These exercises were inspired, in part, by The Canaries, “Notes for the Waiting Room.”