Going South Is Not the Same as Going North /
Going North Is Not the Same as Going South, 2016

On vacant advertising space above the entrances to two gas stations north of Metz, France, on either side of highway A31 – one of the key transit routes between northern and southern Europe – two statements alluding to current political realities remind travellers that they are moving either with or against today’s migratory flow. In the neon version, the statements stand face to face in the exhibition space, indicating, like a compass, the direction of the viewer’s gaze. Leveraging a psychological perception of geography and a linguistic tautology, the work questions the notions of movement and migration. It speaks to the crucial importance of perspective and geographic location in seeking to understand the cultural construction of one’s own horizon, one’s own fate.