UPDATE! The Ghosts of Seattle Past anthology is now available from Chin Music Press. Would you like to buy a copy?
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The Ghosts of Seattle Past is an atlas of our memories, a collaborative map of places loved and missed in a rapidly evolving city. In this interactive art installation and anthology curated by author/editor Jaimee Garbacik, storytelling and cartography preserve the venues, restaurants, shops and institutions we’ve lost to development in Seattle, the city of the future.
The Maps. Ghosts of Seattle Past.
There are maps. The curator’s father is the last remaining cartographer and land surveyor in New England who still makes maps by hand, and he lent his expertise to our hand-drawn maps of Seattle’s past, pinned with the phantom places we recall together. You can still add spots to the digital map-in-progress on this site, or to Josh Powell’s hand-drawn maps when Ghosts of Seattle Past appears at a venue near you. This exhibit will be shown in as many places as will have it for us to remember together our shared histories.
The Anthology. Ghosts of Seattle Past.
There is an anthology of memories. Seattleites were invited to submit stories, essays, photographs, and art featuring their experiences in these lost places. A beta version of the atlas also traveled to festivals and galleries, to receive in-person submissions. A sample of these memories are viewable on this website via the maps and blog posts. The full cultural atlas was compiled and edited, and then released in print as an anthology by Chin Music Press featuring Josh Powell’s hand-drawn maps. It has since been named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award for 2018 nonfiction book of the year.