Voyage vers le centre du monde

Voyage vers le centre du monde – “Since 2015, when I started the project, I have met migrants at different stages of their journey, travelled with them on the train they call the Beast, interviewed hired killers (sicarios) and smugglers (coyotes). I also researched landscapes and iconography to present the setting for this adventure, Mexico, as the fascinating, immense and extreme country that it is.”
Cristina De Middel presents the migratory route through Mexico as a heroic journey: without denying the violence and dangers faced by migrants, she constructs a sublime epic that turns stereotypes on their head. Combining her staged images tinged with magical realism with archive photos and objects found in the desert, she questions the ambiguous relationship that photography has with truth.
The testimonies of Elad from Cameroon, Noémie from Haiti and Lirian and Yariel from Cuba powerfully embody the diversity of these journeys, all converging on the Mexico-United States border. The interview with Jacques-André Istel, the astonishing mayor of Felicity, a place close to the border that its founder proclaimed to be the centre of the world, and the wonderful text by Mexican journalist Pedro Anza, “Finding the centre”, echo Cristina De Middel’s images.