One summer I found a colourful and well-crafted signpost at Vernadsky Station on the Antarctic peninsula right next to the small distillery where the Ukrainians made a splendid vodka using water from melted icebergs. On this post twenty cities or stations were listed with the directions and distances to each location from where I sat. This was a special and comforting pole which enabled me to place myself as I became a little lost due to indulging in a few too many glasses of literally icy vodka.

I have seen many of these many-sided signs in many lands and in particular on Antarctic stations. They usually display the broad number of towns which have strong connections to each particular station. Often the cities from where the expeditioners are originally from as well as other remote scientific villages on the white continent. These signs attempt to locate and position the remoteness of the actual signage post as well as perhaps attempting to ward off home sickness by formally referencing missed hometowns even if they are enormous distances away.

Signs with multiple directions can show routes to anywhere - toilets, castles, towns, shops, mountains or countries as well as the distances to get to wherever is named. The four cardinal points of N, S, E and W could be simply shown, or you may find a chaotic sculptural conglomeration presenting dozens of places. A porcupine post of pointers portraying possible places to ponder.

Found on roads or paths across the world and especially at tourist locations, scenic sites or remote spots where they present geography via symbols to inform, amuse and hopefully help to avoid feelings of disorientation. They can also give you the option to get pleasantly lost in thought.

All these signs are similar in construction; made from wood, plastic or metal. Always informative and sometimes decorative. There are two parts - the vertical and the horizontal. I see the stable vertical post as the base that can represent deeply planted foundations while the mess of horizontal signs pointing to locations far and wide are the memories of previous travels or future travel desires. Poles stabbed into distinct latitudes and longitudes combined with arrows and symbols of faraway imagined places somehow join right here with way over there.

They are stationary figures in landscapes but hint at movement by informing those able to read the symbols about other places not so close. Multi signs display close-by and far-off simultaneously. These signposts often do not state where they stand as most people know basically where they are most of the time (depending on what they drink and how much) They do state an array of other places marking where you once were or where you wish to be rather than where you are. They are clues to other positions and other times.

I relate to these multi-directional placement pillars as I have an innate love for geography and an ongoing desire to move but one cannot always move where and when one wishes to. Poly-directional signs can guide us to what is nearby, to peripheral positions on the globe, to elsewhere or to otherness. Reminders that there is much more than here, much more than now and much more than us.