We Are Here

An extraordinary visual data book like no other Clustered yet scattered, we New Zealanders live across the country's physical landscapes, experiencing its varied weather and environments. We co-create its political, economic and social systems on a daily basis. Each of us has a particular view of Aotearoa, yet nobody comprehends the whole. This book's sets of maps and graphics help New Zealanders make sense of their country, to grasp the scale, diversity and intricacies of Aotearoa, and to experience feelings of connection to land, to place, to this time in our history, and to one another. By making data visible, each graphic reveals insights about Aotearoa. They answer a range of questions: Who visits us? How many fish are in the sea? How equal are we? How do we hurt ourselves? Where do our cats go to at night? This compelling mixture of charts, graphs, diagrams, maps and illustrations is functional, beautiful, insightful and enlightening. It tells us where we are, here, in 2018. Essays by some of New Zealand's best thinkers complete the package.

‘If the visualisation of data can be counted as an expression of science, then this is a book to be treasured. It shows New Zealand in ways that need no words to leave a deep impact – such as the pages covered in hundreds of thousands of data dots, with each dot representing a child growing up in poverty.’ — New Zealand Listener; ‘Data as poetry, as art, as cartography. A revelation. Buy it for everyone for Christmas.’ — Unity Books bestseller chart; ‘Honestly this is spectacular. By rights it will become as ubiquitous as that big blue Union-Jacked Reed New Zealand Atlas was when we were kids.’ — The Spinoff; ‘What Chris McDowall and Tim Denee have made is a smashed-it-out-of-the-park heroically monumental work of data visualisation art. We Are Here deserves to become a much-loved dog-eared reference, and not just among data nerds like me, but in homes, schools, libraries, businesses, and government offices.’ — Aaron Schiff, The Spinoff; ‘The book as a whole, thanks to designer Denee, is a masterful visualisation of McDowall’s data. I’m pretty comfortable calling the book a work of art that ultimately falls within a tradition of conceptual documentary art from Billy Apple to Ruth Watson.’ — Andrew Paul Wood, EyeContact; ‘There is an honesty and a passion in this work. It tells some powerful stories about Aotearoa – some are very thought provoking, others make uncomfortable reading. But “our past has happened and we can learn from it,” says Lillian Grace in the Afterword, “but the future – well that’s in our hands and hearts: we are here.” This atlas must surely make a significant contribution to the spreading of such a sentiment.’ —Mary Spence MBE, former president of the British Cartographic Society

Dr Chris McDowall trained as a geographer with a focus on cartography and human geography. He has worked variously as cartographer, environmental scientist and manager at the University of Auckland, Landcare Research, the National Library of New Zealand and Figure.NZ. The common thread through his career is a desire to make the nations data easier to find and interpret. Tim Denee is a Wellington-based designer who has worked across a range of disciplines interactive design, product design, illustration, art direction and typography. He has designed book covers, websites, apps, brands and museum experiences.

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