We Are Here

'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