Between Before and After

Anyone that knows me well is quite aware of my acute interest in the subject of implied or figurative time travel. That is to say, the exploration of space and time via imaginary journeys, carefully constructed cartographies of the mind and tales of mythical places (suggested reading: Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities). In the case of Darren Almond's immensely large and engaging video works now being screened at the Musee D'Art Contemporain, he explores “in-between” zones, spaces with no determined sense of place, neither past nor present, departure nor arrival. They simply exist in a temporal flux, leaving the viewer to decipher the proper direction and destination, if in fact they exist at all.
In the featured work, "In The Between", Almond's camera follows the new railway line between Xining, China, and Lhasa, Tibet, crossing the Kunlun Shan mountain range, the natural boundary along the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau.
The subject matter is both controversial and mesmerizing. And while you can't help but imagine where the journey may take you, It's the journey itself that makes this work so fulfilling.