CARINE & ELISABETH KRECKÉ
Perdre le nord
with the kind support of Lët'zArles
Artistic collaborator: Elisabeth Krecké
Curator: Kevin Muhlen
"In June 2018, Luxembourg artist Carine Krecké stumbled across a series of photos on Google Maps showing the destruction of Arbin, a town on the northern outskirts of Damascus.
These images triggered an obsession in the artist that, for six years, led her on a frantic quest for information. Diving into the heart of official networks, forums and exchange platforms of all kinds, she explores the stories of tragic destinies, both collective and individual.
Faced with the mass of information to be verified, Carine Krecké investigates relentlessly, cross-checking testimonies from her computer screen. She doesn't hesitate to expose herself to danger by immersing herself in discussions, infiltrating networks and appropriating investigative and analytical tools.
Hyper-informed without ever losing her critical sense, the artist oscillates between lucidity and vertigo, hypnotized by images and stories, trapped in a fog of war where reality and hallucination merge.
With "Perdre le nord", Carine Krecké looks back on a total and intimate immersion in a world that was not her own: the war in Syria. She deconstructs (and reconstructs) her investigative experience, both affective and immersive, by stepping back from the images, the protagonists and the stakes of her investigation.
The exhibition becomes a space of tension between reality and its representation, where collected documents, stories and visual fragments interact with the architecture that hosts them. Through a series of never-before-seen videos and a scenographic device conceived as a sensitive cartography, viewers are invited to make their way among these traces and, in turn, experience a form of wandering in this labyrinth of information and perceptions.
By projecting her investigation into a dialogue with the space and the people who pass through it, Carine Krecké questions the relevance of the gaze in the face of war and the images that bear witness to it. Confronted with these recomposed visions, the public becomes an actor in the experience, contributing their own experiences, emotions and interpretations. The exhibition is more than a simple narrative: it's an invitation to rethink our relationship with information and images in times of conflict."
- Kevin Muhlen, curator
Exhibition views
(Chapelle de la Charité / Arles)
Photos © Armand Quetsch / CNA Luxembourg, 2025
"The Yellow Men"
Fictional dialogue
Based on facts and lies
Zone zero (generic war image), digital drawing,© 2025 Carine Krecké Wallpaper 490 x 323 cm
June 2018.
Enira K accidentally comes across a war photograph on Google Maps. The image—a 360-degree apocalyptic vision, captioned “Only a Psycho Would Play such a Game—immediately haunts her. She wants to understand. Determined, she sets out to investigate the story behind the
photo and the identity of its author. From the start, she documents her search through audio recordings, which she shares on her blog as an experimental podcast. She believes she’s doing the right thing: giving a voice to the brave young man who dared to expose a warcrime on a mapping platform—a testimony that, in her view,
could have changed the course of events. But soon, the photographer vanishes, along with his striking images. Determined to find him, Enira dives into social media. Her online search takes her to a mountain area in Lebanon, then Syria. The man seems to reappear intermittently, all while
making every effort to stay hidden. Gradually, Enira realizes that her podcast, by revealing too many clues, might be putting the young photographer in danger. Wracked with guilt, she decides to delete everything. She thinks she’s
corrected her mistake and feels relieved.
But a few years later, the past catches up with her. Her podcast resurfaces within a strange community of gamers known as “GeoSnoopers”—amateur cartographers obsessed with online challenges. This toxic group twists Enira’s deleted content into the centerpiece of a cruel game, where players manipulate one another for dark purposes. Trapped in a world where the boundaries between virtual and real, but also between facts and lies, collapse, Enira becomes the target of a harassment and psychological abuse campaign. The players, hungry for sensationalism, push her to let slip sensitive information about the photographer she had tried to protect. What began as a quest for justice turns against her, transforming her good intentions into a weapon against the very person she sought to save. Enira faces a dilemma: protect the truth or protect lives, all while struggling to safeguard her own.
The Yellow Men / Wallpaper 490 x 323 cm
"Lend Me Your Eyes"
Anthology of 4 short films
I began to take an interest in images of the Syrian Civil War in June 2018, after stumbling upon a series of photos posted on Google Maps by a local user. His 360-degree photos—about thirty in total—documented the devastation of a suburban town near Damascus, Arbin, a place I had never heard of before.
I was intrigued. I started searching for other Syrian witnesses who had used this mapping tool to share their images of the war. Altogether, I identified about ten of them. Their choice proved to be an ingenious strategy to bypass the strict censorship imposed on social media in this highly repressive country.
Among these local Google Maps guides, five stood out. They seemed to represent varied, even opposing, perspectives on the Syrian conflict.
A flood of questions came to mind. Who are these people? What were their motivations? Why did they choose a mapping platform instead of a traditional social network to express their outrage at the destruction of their country?
The images uploaded by these local Google Maps contributors convey fragments of the war they experienced—at times desperate calls for help, at times distorted accounts, fabrications, or even threats—yet they always bear the imprint of the fragile, deeply subjective perspectives of their witnesses, leaving a lasting mark on anyone who confronts them.
Too Far, Too Close
Documentary short film (20'')
"Too far, and you lose sight.
Too close, and you lose vision."
Georges Didi-Huberman,
Remontages du temps subi, L’Œil de
l’Histoire, 2, Ed. de Minuit, 2010, p. 38.
“Too Far Too Close” explores war through two extreme perspectives: either from a dizzying distance (aerial or satellite views), or from an equally exaggerated proximity (just a few centimeters from the subject). Surprisingly, these opposing viewpoints end up merging, blurring our bearings. How should we apprehend war? What is the right distance, not only to contemplate it, but also to grasp its emotional impact? This documentary essay, both conceptual and contemplative, examines these dilemmas within an aesthetic framework where the image prevails over words.
The Book
