DARK PLACES: PART I - GO TO CHURCH. OR THE DEVIL WILL GET YOU! presented during Nord Fiction, JUNE 17-18, 2022 @ AIRSHIP HANGAR, ÉCAUSSEVILLE
Dark Places: Part I – Go To Church. Or The Devil Will Get You! was created for the Nord Fiction Festival inside the monumental Écausseville Airship Hangar (Normandy, France), June 17–18, 2022. This first chapter inaugurates the ongoing Dark Places series, a multi-chapter investigation into U.S. “dark sites,” memory, and cultural folklore.
The installation consisted of a full-scale wooden church façade modeled on rural Southern Gothic architecture and classic horror film sets. The façade was mounted within the hangar and displayed as a cinematic prop, simultaneously evocative of abandoned American churches and gothic movie atmospheres. The work was designed as a temporary, site-specific intervention: the façade was assembled and dismantled over the two festival days, with only two devil silhouettes preserved as remnants.
Inspiration
Drawing from a famous roadside sign in Prattville, Alabama (“Go to Church or the Devil Will Get You”), the project explores how vernacular religious imagery becomes deeply embedded in American cultural memory. By transporting this southern icon into a European context and presenting it as a ghostly relic of cinematic horror, the piece questions notions of collective belief, fear, nostalgia, and the power of symbols to travel across geographies and generations. The work challenges viewers to contemplate how images of faith, sin, and salvation are transformed through projection and displacement.
(...) As it turns out, the Devil Sign has a prosaic yet interesting origin. It originated on a tin road sign between the cities of Prattville and Montgomery, when a Montgomery businessman named Mose Stuart opened a franchise of area gas stations in the 1920s. He called his stations, or the first station—it isn’t clear which—the “Red Devil,” and the devil figure festooned the sign above the gas pumps. When Stuart was harassed by the conglomerate Standard Oil, he opened a “recreational park” near his gas station out of spite. He created an artificial lake for this park that was subsequently named Red Devil Lake. The lake was destroyed when, in 1939, a flood caused the dam that maintained it to burst. The dam was never repaired, but the gas station—and the tin devil sign—remained. The gas station eventually closed and was demolished, but the sign stood in place until a man named Newell took it and put it on his “Go to church” sign in 1988.
Process
Initially, the 3D design process helped refine both the aesthetic rendering and the overall scale of the façade, ensuring its dimensions were proportionate to the interior volume of the airship hangar.
The rendering then had to be adapted to the realities of the site, technical constraints, and available materials — all within the limits of time and budget.
Finally, construction began on June 8 with the Bankal & Decker team (five people plus two interns) and Cécile di Giovanni. The façade was completed in nine days. None of it would have been possible without the support of the festival and the help of the volunteers.
The installation was on view for two days during the festival, after which it was completely dismantled. The only remaining elements are the two devils that were featured on the façade.
Merchandising
A poster and a T-shirt featuring the poster’s design were produced. The T-shirt was sold in a limited edition and only during the duration of the festival.
