All the Roads Taken

Géoving Gérard

Exhibition Date Range: August 7 – September 25, 2025

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 7th, 6-8pm

This project, All the Roads Taken, began not as a photographic pursuit, but as a biking one — sparked by a desire to ride every single road within Atlanta’s I-285 Perimeter. Growing up, I grappled with what it meant to be “Atlanta enough.” As the biracial child of immigrant parents, I sometimes struggled with feeling “enough” in my identities, and despite being an Atlanta native, I didn’t always feel connected to the city. Riding every road became a personal challenge — a way to carve out my own sense of belonging.

What began as a plan to create a biking heatmap evolved into something more expansive: a visual reflection of the city’s people, places, and emotional rhythms. I started to see Atlanta as a reflection of the American landscape itself — sprawling, fragmented, and layered with contrast. Surface lots stretched like empty fields. County lines echoed state borders. Roads and railways bound the city together but also fractured it, revealing a persistent tension between connection and division. And above it all, the city’s canopy of trees served as a quiet reminder of nature’s endurance.

I use a documentary-style approach to photograph the scenes I encounter without staging — capturing lived-in moments that would have unfolded regardless of my presence. I’m driven by a sense of curiosity and a desire to document the environments I move through and the way people inhabit them — from the vastness of national parks, the decay of urban abandonments, to even political signage scattered across suburban yards. Themes often emerge organically over time, and I shape bodies of work around those recurring threads.

All the Roads Taken explores the ways Metro Atlanta mirrors the broader American experience while simultaneously tracing my own physical and emotional connection to the city I’ve called home my entire life. More than anything, the project is a story of the people who shape this place. My hope is that others will see reflections of their own Atlanta experiences in these photographs — whether through a familiar street, a passing moment, or a shared feeling. I want the images to evoke the emotional textures I experienced on my rides — a blend of curiosity, distance, connection, and, at times, awe.