MorganaCarter, who is one of multiple people who have pointed me to various regions and parcels over the years, dropped me an IM directing me to Jim Garand’s Grauland Flickr group, and specifically to an image and message simple in form, but very saddening:
Grauland Is Gone.
Say Good Night
The Party Is Over
Many people in SL have regarded Grauland as a favourite location; a place to visit and enjoy, each new iteration bringing something special to our digital world.
For more than seven years I’ve routinely visited it to appreciate Jim’s work and to blog about it. And while I didn’t managed to captures every single version of the region which arose in that time, I did cover 30 – and I will genuinely miss being able to visit it and see what else has come forth from Jim’s fertile imagination.
The builds Jim has presented with Grauland were always unique, although there were certain themes to which he would return – sci-fi, urban, minimalist, industrial -, but no single design ever re-tread exactly the same path as any previous design.
My first visit was in March 2019; I think that was to the first region build Jim had opened to the public – but I could well be wrong on that. At that time, the region was leaning heavily into a landscape-as-gallery, featuring things like an arrangement of great concrete blocks (a geometric motif which would oft appear in Jim’s designs in various guises), an indoor galley and outdoor 3D displays.
Art always remained a part of Grauland, be it front-and-centre, as in March 2020 with Grauland Castle and Art Park and again in July of that year in which an ancient henge, modern architecture and statuary all combined with the landscape, or with June 2021’s Grauland Falls; sometimes it was more subtle, as with October 2021’s Grauland’s Lights, where geometrics forms and a cityscape served to highlight the use of lighting in Second Life; sometime it even appeared to be a natural part of the architecture or urban space – a graffiti-marked statue here, wall paintings there…
As well as offering unique designs, Grauland could also present places inspired by locations in the the physical world – tropical islands, deserts, urban centres and industrial outlands and more. Iceland in particular became the focus of two designs (both favourites of mine, as I’ve always loved the times I’ve spent in that country) – July 2023’s Grauvik and February 2025’s Grauvik 2 – both of which were set on a fictional island just off the Icelandic coast.
As noted earlier, Grauland also took us to places far away from Earth. Some of these carried with them the opportunity for visitors to create a back story to account for the mystery which might be implied within them (November 2023’s Grauland / The Deity Machine) or engage their their sense of adventure, as with January 2023’s visit to a space station and a Mars-like planet, together with The Grauland Cluster (September 2025) and June 2026’s visit to the Spires of Sector 7.
One – The Last Trees, from April 2024 – might be seen as gentle warning about the perils of unchecked global warming here on Earth, whilst Arrakis / Fremen Home in May 2025 offered a take on Frank Herbert’s Dune.
One of my favourite industrial designs Jim produced was Grauland / Primary Colors (September 2024), a marvellous setting in which primary colours were very much part and parcel of the build, often in the most subtle of ways (just look at the use of red on the locomotive), and which very cleverly gave a hint as to where it might reside were it in the physical world thanks to an advertising board.
Grauland is going to be missed by many, and there is so much more that might be written about it, but I’ll close here with the words I left for Jim on the Grauland Flickr group – if you’re also a fan of his work, I hope you’ll leave some words of appreciation as well -, and a couple more images.
Will always appreciate the work you put into Grauland, Jim, and in being able to visit and blog. Many, many, thanks for all the time and effort and consistently building special places for us all to enjoy.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 