Ehvfandar

Introduction

Ehvfandar? Surely there's no such place? Well, in the 'real' world, no, there isn't. But during the latter part of my childhood, it was a place as real as the city I lived in.

This is a photograph showing a map I made of Ehvfandar, taken when my bedroom carpet was still blue, something which didn't change until I was 16. I'm not sure when exactly the map was made, but I'm guessing it was around 1983.

In a talk I gave as part of my residency at OVADA I stated that:

"...as a child, I liked to create and map worlds; countries which I would build from fragments of the world around me; forests, mountains and plains - unspoilt landscapes. And in these worlds there would exist towns and cities, created from 'the best bits' of those I had visited.

These invented worlds became, as I grew up, the 'invented' or imagined landscapes of Oxford's past; landscapes that were - just as they still are - created from fragments, parts of the past which are still extant in the city; old buildings, walls, objects and so on. Between these structures, these fragments, I would fill the gaps, with my own imagination, with thoughts derived from my own experience."

Ehvfandar therefore, although purely fictitious, was like all imagined worlds, based upon reality.