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Maps can get you from point A to point B, and if you’re a tourist in London, that’s useful.

Twelve students taking part in the London Art and Art History Study Group last fall also learned that maps can serve as benchmarks of experience, providing graphical representations of intangible ideas.

The students shared their mapping projects and artwork they created overseas at a recent exhibition at Little Hall.

The semester abroad was led by Linn Underhill, associate professor of art and art history. The students took classes in British museum theory, the London contemporary art scene, and theater, and a studio art course in which they constructed their own sketchbooks and worked on the mapping projects.

Lisa Marchi ’09 used her sneakers as the basis for one of her mapping projects. (Photo by Warren Wheeler)

“At first the idea of a map seemed restricting to most of us, but after a while we expanded our thought processes and used the concept ‘map’ to filter rather than construct our pieces,” said Lisa Marchi ’09.

One of Marchi’s mapping projects involved her colorful sneakers, which she wore on the flight from her home in Scottsdale, Ariz., to London and then nearly every day in the city, in all kinds of weather.

One of her scuffed-up shoes, sliced in half from heel to toe to show how worn they had become, and an accompanying set of detailed drawings were on display in Little Hall.

“Their deterioration revealed my struggles to navigate through the city, and my ultimate triumph as a London inhabitant and as a more confident artist,” said Marchi, who is majoring in art and art history with an architecture emphasis.

John Emison ’09 made his favorite piece, “London Fog,” on his last day in the city. He “caught” fog that he displayed in an enclosed glass container.

“It made me realize how much I would miss the city, the experiences, and the people I was with. The way you can’t see the fog was somehow representative of looking back at my experience in London,” said the art and art history and anthropology double major.

Underhill said the students also were able to visit major museums and intimate galleries.

“It was a deep immersion in all types of art in an absolutely wonderful place to do it,” she said.

Emison said a visit to the Tate was especially interesting because the group met a curator and board member who provided an insiders’ look at the museum. At the same time, he loved Sir John Soane’s Museum, which he found fascinating because of the way it was packed wall to wall with artwork.