Blending concrete historical anchors, fractured abstractions, and ephemeral moments of clarity, Bearing Objects denies itself in favor of uncomfortable disorientation.  Recognizable artifacts of mapmaking are transformed, truncated, and repositioned  in order to reveal the systematic flattening, emptying effects of western cartographic methods on the making and un/making of place.  Challenging the isolating fragmentation of these structures, this thesis proposes instead the muddy, multiple, and intertwined, self consciously embracing the patchy, entangled, and incomplete in order to remain earnestly present.