European settlers arrive in a new world, vast, and unknown to them. In the space where fear and uncertainty creeps in, they realise that something else was on that ship with them, the mythical beasts of their ancestors. Creating the USA map was a great chance to see how myths can travel. It turns out that it wasn't as monster movies would have us believe it was - it was not in a mysterious crate festooned with ancient symbols in the hold of a ship sailing into a foggy harbour, but in our minds. You can't leave the subconscious at home. When people are afraid, paranoid and desperate the human mind will do a wonderful job of creating narrative, it's how it works, it needs stories, just hope the locals decide it is something in the woods and that you don't find yourself labelled as a witch.

 

Expanding through this new land was a dangerous undertaking and brought with it new myths, tall tales, Indigenous belief, cryptids, and cultures from across the world interwove and created new stories to explain the world around them.

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Find out more about the making of the map in our blog.