Samuel Bollendorff — Frontaliers, des vies en stéréo

Massenoire, Esch-sur-Alze
From October 22, 2022 to February 5, 2023

Immersive exhibition by Mehdi Ahoudig and Samuel Bollendorff

Frontaliers, des vies en stéréo is the result of a sociological investigation that started in early 2020. Mehdi Ahoudig and Samuel Bollendorff, who have been working together since 2010, examine the relationships between still images and sound. In this project, for which they immersed themselves in Lorraine, they attempted to draw a typology of cross-border workers. Their work enables spectators to meet some of the singular personalities they encountered during their research.

In neighbouring Lorraine, the working-class community has partly disappeared as a result of the closure of the mines and the end of the steel industry. The region, which has been left to deal with the consequences of liberal economics, has been hampered by mass unemployment since.
Faced with this precarious situation, local workers have turned to their prosperous neighbour Luxembourg, whose economy is largely dependent on foreign labour, which makes up 80% of its workforce. Day by day, the roads of this new El Dorado, which boasts the world’s highest GDP, are clogged by cross-border commuters streaming into the country.
In twenty years, the number of French frontaliers working in Luxembourg has doubled. From Longwy to Schengen, along the border that separates the two countries, the French region is kept on artificial life support by the influx of money from Luxembourg.
Every morning, the city of Luxembourg fills up with the workers who drive its mighty financial industry, and every evening, it empties itself out. Day by day, 250,000 cross-border workers toil in the heart of the European financial system.

The exhibition Frontaliers, des vies en stéréo is an immersive sound and visual experience that appeals to several senses at once.