Cristina De Middel
Journey to the Center
18 October–23 December

Saturday, 25 October 2025
1pm launch of OVER Journal #4 and #5, followed by a conversation with Cristina De Middel
2pm Artist Talk with David Farrel

Journey to the Center is a series that borrows the atmosphere and structure of Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” to present the Central American migration route across Mexico as a heroic and daring journey, rather than a runaway.

In this version of the journey, the starting point is Tapachula, the Southern border of Mexico with Guatemala, and the journey ends in Felicity, a small town in California that is officially the “Center of the World”. The absurdity of this landmark, from where you can see the border fence, just adds a layer of dystopic disappointment and becomes the perfect colophon for a contemporary version of a heroic jest, where the final destination is little less than a roadside tourist attraction.

With a language that combines straight documentary photography with constructed images and archival material, the narrative becomes multi-layered in order to complete the simplistic approach that media and official reports provide to the complex phenomenon of migration.

After 10 years as a photojournalist, Cristina De Middel shifted her practice to a more conceptual approach in order to question the documentary value of photography. In 2012, she produced the acclaimed series The Afronauts, triggering a decade of work around the role of photography in creating stereotypes. Besides her prolific career as an author and as an active member of the photography community, Cristina has been invited to curate festivals like Lagos Photo, PhotoEspaña, and San José Photo in Uruguay. She has published more than 14 photobooks, and her work is constantly on show in different institutions and venues. Cristina became a full member of Magnum Photos in 2022 and served as its President from 2022 to 2025. She is also on the board of Vist Projects, supporting Latin American visual storytelling.