'I am lost. But my map seems to know where I am going.
But am I lost? Is being lost even possible in this place that knows it all? I want to stop. But she insists;
Proceed to the route. Proceed to the route.'
—Tania Franco Klein
Mexican artist Tania Franco Klein explores her yearning to ‘get lost’ in her enticingly enigmatic series Proceed To The Route, titled after the command Siri (the all-knowing digital voice) gives to GPS users when a wrong turn has been made. While many of the photographs are self-portraits, the artist uses retro styling and cinematic framing to stage herself as anonymous characters in undefined locations and time. Here, we see a dramatically cropped close up of a woman with softly parted lips, set against an ochre-coloured field with a small propeller plane in the near distance. With her sleek yet offbeat style, Franco Klein constructs ambiguous tableaux that provide no fixed or clear meaning as seen in the present work, transporting us to another place and time. ‘My world is more psychological, emotional and intimate,’ she notes. ‘I'm not trying to create a story.’ Living between Mexico City, California and London, Franco Klein has received numerous awards, including the Photo London Artproof Schliemann Award in 2018 and the LensCulture Visual Storytelling Award in 2019.