TENDER MAP MAKING

Plate 4: Spe Frigoris

Spe Frigoris* was a mountainous land, known for its famously ice-cold weather. So much so that it swallowed all the human-visitors before**. Villagers neighboring the mountain would talk among themselves. They would explain the long gone myths of their grand-grand-grandparents.

“She went there with her best companion, capybara. As she saw the heart of the mountain, instantly, her skin felt strange. It was covered with icicles. These first pierced into her skin and then, into her heart. The blood froze even without leaking out. So the capybara said.”

The myths grew bigger. Even the youth, who were full of energy, could not dare them to cross the mountain. For five hundred years.

Meanwhile, Spe Frigoris was taking some deep breaths while the humans were gone. Five hundred years is as short as the blink of an eye for Spe Frogoris, unlike the humans. “This is a memorable breath. A clean, cool breath.” So the mountain thought.

Once the blink was gone, there were the humans again. This time, with their seemingly new companions. It was not capybara anymore, but rather their big, chunky machines. First, they came in with their excavators. Then, with the cranes. These did not seem to pierce ice in their skins. Soon enough, concrete was poured on the soil. And there it all began.

They called it a rational grid. The worms underneath were yelling otherwise. The more they poured their greed, the warmer Spe Frigoris got. Soon enough, the myths were forgotten. That is when there came this cartographer. Drawing out this map with its ‘waterfalls’, without knowing that they were melted (once) glaciers. Spe Frigoris wanted to shout, but who would listen? That was when the cartographer came in. While they documented it, they found much more on this land, which became the departure of the cartographer’s journey…

*Spe Frigoris is a fictional land which the maker uses in her separate graphic novel project.

**Inspiration: Ağrıdağı Efsanesi, Yaşar Kemal, 1970