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As of May 2022, all continents but Antarctica are complete and the ocean is well underway. The first print from the map is now available – Wild World: Australasia!
Est. completion for the world is 2023. To keep up-to-date, subscribe below.
Est. completion for the world is 2023. To keep up-to-date, subscribe below.
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Wild World
Commenced in 2020, this is a world map of nature. Rather than the endless skylines and cultural features of North America: Portrait of a Continent, I wanted to evoke the wilderness of Earth. It began in the depths of lockdown, and in some ways it was inspired by the pandemic – a love letter to a world we miss. But I’d also imagined it for years. I remember watching David Attenborough documentaries as a child, lost in his evocation of nature’s majesty – inspired to care about it. I loved this view of Earth. I imagined a world map without us – without borders, roads and cities. Instead, it would highlight a wild world that still exists today. Drawn with colour pencil and pen, it is in the Natural Earth projection, centered on 11°E rather than Greenwich. A printed basemap is stapled behind the art paper, allowing me to trace Earth precisely with a light pad. For this to be a useful physical world map as well an artwork, accuracy is important. So too are the geographic labels. There are a few guidelines to choosing animals: they must be wild and indigenous to the area. They must be extant, so you won’t find Tasmanian tiger or moa (this time). Not every animal neatly fits these criteria, but it works well enough. As humanity rapidly transforms nature, it’s vital we think about the non-human world and native biomes. This is a world map of nature, not nations. |
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The first completed segment is available in print now: Wild World: Australasia. More will be released as the map unfolds, with the next being the Americas. The estimated completion date for the entire world is early-mid 2023.
Follow the map progress:
