This Man Has Been Drawing a Map of an Imaginary Land Since 1963 | Open Culture

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This Man Has Been Drawing a Map of an Imaginary Land Since 1963

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Jun<br>23

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This Man Has Been Drawing a Map of an Imaginary Land Since 1963

in Art, Maps | June 23rd, 2026 Leave a Comment

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At one time or anoth­er, we all feel twinges of anx­i­ety about what will con­sti­tute the lega­cy we leave behind. Jer­ry Gret­zinger may well be sub­ject to just the same dis­com­fort, but at least he can point to the Map: an enor­mous rep­re­sen­ta­tion, made of thou­sands and thou­sands of indi­vid­u­al­ly cre­at­ed and con­tin­u­al­ly mod­i­fied pan­els, of an entire­ly fic­tion­al land called Ukra­nia. You can see Jer­ry’s Map painstak­ing­ly laid out in its most up-to-date state in the new Peo­ple Make Games video above. As inter­est­ing as the prod­uct is so far, the work that goes into it is just as com­pelling, which Gret­zinger per­forms every day accord­ing to a com­plex and strict­ly defined set of pro­ce­dures dic­tat­ed by a deck of heav­i­ly mod­i­fied play­ing cards.

It would take an astute lis­ten­er to grasp the rules of the project the first time through, but they’re also avail­able for sup­ple­men­tary study at the offi­cial site of Gret­zinger’s map. They may bring to mind Bri­an Eno’s Oblique Strate­gies, the deck of cards print­ed with sug­ges­tions meant to dis­lodge cre­ative jams in the music stu­dio or else­where.

The map itself may look more rem­i­nis­cent of the work of Hen­ry Darg­er, anoth­er “out­sider artist” who pro­duced riots of col­or and hap­haz­ard-look­ing mate­ri­als with an obses­sive under­ly­ing order of their own. But unlike Darg­er, who died in obscu­ri­ty only for his askew epics to be dis­cov­ered among his belong­ings, Gret­zinger has become famous for his cre­ation in his life­time, so much so that there exists an active sub­red­dit of ama­teurs fol­low­ing his exam­ple.

Still, the Map did first have to be redis­cov­ered. What Gret­zinger began as the expan­sion of idle doo­dles in urban form made dur­ing breaks at the ball bear­ing fac­to­ry in 1963 had to be shelved in the eight­ies, when a cloth­ing busi­ness he’d start­ed with his wife took off. A cou­ple of decades there­after, his son’s dis­cov­ery of the Map in the attic inspired Gret­zinger to resume work on it, which has con­tin­ued apace ever since. When inter­viewed, he sounds less like a cre­ator than an observ­er, help­less­ly watch­ing as the city of Ukra­nia becomes more abstract as it grows — and as great swathes are inex­orably con­sumed by a white space, made of scraps of his own cor­re­spon­dence and oth­er life arti­facts, that he por­ten­tous­ly calls “the Void.” Now that he’s in his mid-eight­ies, Gret­zinger appears to find it all more freight­ed with mean­ing than ever. Soon­er or lat­er, alas the Void comes for us all; what’s left to us is how we pre­pare for it.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed con­tent:

Invis­i­ble Cities Illus­trat­ed: Artist Illus­trates Each and Every City in Ita­lo Calvino’s Clas­sic Nov­el

Japan­ese Design­er Cre­ates Incred­i­bly Detailed & Real­is­tic Maps of a City That Doesn’t Exist

William Faulkn­er Draws Maps of Yok­na­p­ataw­pha Coun­ty, the Fic­tion­al Home of His Great Nov­els

Map of Mid­dle-Earth Anno­tat­ed by Tolkien Found in a Copy of Lord of the Rings

The Medieval City Plan Gen­er­a­tor: A Fun Way to Cre­ate Your Own Imag­i­nary Medieval Cities

An Intro­duc­tion to Out­sider Artist Hen­ry Darg­er and His Bizarre 15,000-Page Illus­trat­ed Mas­ter­work

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Comments (0) |

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