Level 1 of 6
The World
Seven continents in one ocean
The whole planet on a B5 plate. Seven pieces lift out of a single sheet of ocean.
7 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 157 km
Collection
Oaxaca
From the World down to Oaxaca.
6 plates, each a piece of the one above it, from the World down to this ground. Lift a piece out of one plate and it is the subject of the next.
- 6
- Plates
- 94
- Pieces to lift out
- 773×
- Times closer, top to bottom
- 1
- Ways down
From the whole World to ground you could walk across in an afternoon: the last plate is 773 times closer than the first, and every one of them is a real map at its own scale.
Follow the water
World → North America by River → Pacific Slope → Southern Mexico → Río Verde → Oaxaca
The same descent, cut the other way. A watershed is all the land whose rain ends up in the same river. Every cut follows a ridge, so each piece is one tributary's whole territory — and the piece you lift out of one plate is the subject of the next.
- ↓ Lift out North America by River · 3× closer
Level 2 of 6
North America by River
A continent divided only by where water goes
No countries, no states. Twenty-nine pieces, each one the whole territory that drains into a single river.
28 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 49.4 km
↓ Lift out the Pacific Slope · 3× closer
Level 3 of 6
The Pacific Slope
Mexico and Central America, where the rain runs west
Sonora, the Lerma-Santiago, the Balsas, Southern Mexico, Central America: every region whose rivers run down to the Pacific, from the Sonoran Desert to Panama.
8 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 17.3 km
↓ Lift out Southern Mexico · 3× closer
Level 4 of 6
Southern Mexico
From Acapulco to the Guatemalan border
The Río Verde, the Tehuantepec, the Papagayo, the Ometepec, and the coasts between them: the Pacific side of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas.
14 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 5.1 km
↓ Lift out the Río Verde · 4× closer
Level 5 of 6
The Río Verde
From the valleys of Oaxaca to the Pacific
The Atoyac through Oaxaca city, the Sordo, the Salado of Tlacolula: the basin of the river that carries the central valleys of Oaxaca down to the coast.
14 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 1.2 km
↓ Lift out Oaxaca · 6× closer
Level 6 of 6
Oaxaca
The valley around the city, creek by creek
The end of the descent: the land around Oaxaca city beside the Atoyac, cut into the small catchments of the creeks that run down to it.
23 pieces · 1 mm ≈ 203 m
The plates, printed
Photographs of plates from this collection, as they came off the printer.
