With her images, Annica Karlsson Rixon questions the displacement of migrants from the North of France and what is their perspective. A work to see at the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen.
They are twisted, damaged, covered with trees leaves and mosses, sometimes the have almost returned to dust … Shoes that the artist photographed in Calais where migrants were chased by the police. Objects forgotten in panic, they stayed in the middle of nature and Annica Karlsson Rixon patiently found and immortalized them. In itself, these shoes say a lot about migration: the long road of exile, the importance of being well shod, the precarious situation of migrants, the hunting organized by the French police.
Vikings
To this set of photographs of shoes are added, on the side walls of the exhibition, views of the English Channel. The artist made these seascapes by finding sites where there was population displacement, immigrations and landings. For example, Annica Karlsson Rixon photographed the beach where the 1944 landing took place, or the banks where the Vikings arrived around 841. They are also the beaches that the migrants of Northern France tread today and their first horizon to reach England. It’s impossible not to think about what they are looking at, water that is a wall for them. Annica Karlsson Rixon whispers this to us through the beauty of these landscapes.
Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
Annica Karlsson Rixon, Lumières Nordiques
September 14th – January 6th, 2019
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
Esplanade Marcel Duchamp
76000 Rouen
