Don't Cross the Bridge Before You Get to the River 川に着く前に橋を渡るな

Francis ALYS, an artist born in Belgium in 1959, studied architecture and city planning. In 1986, he arrived in Mexico as an NGO program participant and conducted observation, took photographs, and held performances as part of his urban research. In 1989, he began producing artworks on that basis. He has since won renown as an artist who explores the conditions of urban life employing his own body as a medium. His approach, which is called “intervention through action,” has drawn broad attention as a method of examining urban history, politics, and cultural background. The stage for this work is the Gibraltar Strait separating Europe and Africa. This strait, where in good weather one can stand on one continent and see the other, has long drawn people seeking ways to secretly boat to Europe from Africa. ALYS found it contradictory that contemporary society “promotes global economy and at the same time limits the global flow of people across continents.” In the project he subsequently staged, children formed lines on both shores of the strait and built a bridge of imagination across the water. The work presented here is the artist’s documentation of the project. ALYS’ projects--he calls them “stories”--lack details and overall form, and at times have no conclusion or rationale. These broad margins engender wide-ranging interpretations. The Gibraltar Strait project also leaves unclear whether or not the children attained that meeting beyond the horizon. As befits a work occasioned by a contradiction, the documentary materials present an open story, completed and endlessly replayed in our imaginations. ALYS’ work superimposes a territory of sense experience on a factual territory of society and politics, and explores the possibilities presented by a story. Employing surprising methods, it reveals to us the nature of our reality.