“How does it impact our imaginations that so many places in so many cities are named after men and so few after women? What kind of landscape do we move through when streets and parks and statues and bridges are gendered … and it’s usually one gender, and not another? What kind of silence arises in places that so seldom speak of and to women? This map was made to sing the praises of the extraordinary women who have, since the beginning, been shapers and heroes of this city that has always been, secretly, a City of Women. And why not the subway? This is a history still emerging from underground, a reminder that it’s all connected, and that we get around.”
—Rebecca Solnit

In their acclaimed book Nonstop Metropolis, Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro created an alternative map of the New York subway system, renaming stops after women, non-binary people, and female groups. The map then became an iconic poster and sparked numerous conversations about public space, history, gender, feminism, and memory. In 2019, the independent publisher Haymarket Books released a new version of the map with a revised list of station stops: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1421-city-of-women-poster.

We now want to do the same for London, claiming the iconic Underground map for the women who have made and continue to make the city. Solnit and Schapiro will work with award-winning writer Reni Eddo-Lodge and actor and activist Emma Watson alongside historians, writers, curators, community organisers, museums, and librarians to produce a map that changes our understanding of public history.

This offering is inspired by all the women and non-binary people who have shaped London's history, as well as other projects that have already done much to re-imagine the city from a similar perspective. The contributors would particularly like to acknowledge previous reworkings of the London Underground map, such as We Apologise for the Delay to Your Journey by Thick/er Black Lines (https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tate-exchange/workshop/we-apologise-delay-your-journey), the Literary Tube Map by In the Book (https://www.inthebook.com/en-gb/literary-tube-map/?utm_expid=.Xu1yNT5qTf63FY0Im6ffDw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F), the Great Bear by Simon Patterson (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/patterson-the-great-bear-p77880), and other similar projects. The City of Women map hopes to further contribute to the way London is imagined, navigated, and lived.

Help us produce a map worthy of the city's countless women heroes by leaving your suggestions in the form below.