Hic sunt Dracones, 2017-2019Cyanotype on paper, 10x10 cm | 90 piecesIn 1504, an anonymous cartographer engraved a representation of the... Read More
Hic sunt Dracones, 2017-2019
Cyanotype on paper, 10x10 cm | 90 pieces
In 1504, an anonymous cartographer engraved a representation of the known world on two conjoined halves of ostrich eggs.
The globe is labeled in Latin and includes what were considered exotic territories such as Japan, Brazil and Arabia. North America is depicted as a group of scattered islands. The globe’s lone sentence, above the coast of Southeast Asia, is “Hic Sunt Dracones.”
“Here be dragons” was used to label the unknown, to scare or to encourage the most adventorous to go beyond the limits of the map.
Even though nowadays there are no more unknown places or dragon’s lands, it wouldn’t be correct to say that every corner of our planet have been mapped.
This serie explores all the unmapped places - for military, political or geographic reasons - marked as glitches on the online maps and it aims to create a second layer, made of unknown.