'Lands of Exiles' – Oxfordshire, England - Atlas Obscura

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'Lands of Exiles'

In pastoral England, a plaque marks where an imaginary community addressed the problem of combat mortality. 

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Off a beaten walking path, down the road a piece from a small town in Oxfordshire, you will find a marker that tells the story of the Lands of Exiles. It is part of the parallel universe project called Kcymaerxthaere.  

Kcymaerxthaere is an art project created by Eames Demetrios. A series of plaques and other markers around the world honor events that have taken place in a parallel universe that, according to Demetrios, “co-exists to some degree with ours.” Most of these installations are bronze or stone plaques inscribed with stories but some are larger, even entire buildings. As of 2021, there are more than 140 sites spread across six continents and 30 countries. 

This area across the center of what we call Britain once was home to the Exile gwomes, an area of constant war and much diversity between the different cultures who had unsettling differences. After a great flood swept though the land a truce was called and an agreement was made to not kill one’s opponents, but instead to put them in utter exile by using silcane-like tranquilizers and mourn them as dead. Anyone that attempted contact with those in exile would have their whole family slaughtered.

Some people hear about this solution and think of it as bucolic because of the Silicane and the non-lethality of it. However, another way to see it is that this area consists of a group of gwomes so committed to the continuation of warfare that they will reduce fatalities only in order to have the satisfaction of causing more.

Kcymaerxthaere’s Geographer-at-Large reports that he has not had many reports of this installation for several years, so posting of any recent images would be much appreciated.

 

Know Before You Go

Just off a walking path in the village of Wardington.

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June 16, 2013

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