Since its unveiling in 1992, it has stood on the roof of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), in the Quartier des spectacles district of Montreal.

Cadieux was asked to create La Voie lactée by the MACM on the occasion of the museum's 1992 relocation in a new building on the Place des Arts.

Her choice to depict a pair of giant red lips in the sky was inspired by the Man Ray surrealist painting À l’heure de l’observatoire – Les Amoureux.

La Voie lactée is a light panel measuring 183 by 457 centimetres (72 in × 180 in), closely resembling a billboard in its format, installation and visibility.

[1] La Voie lactée is an intentional homage to the Man Ray surrealist painting À l’heure de l’observatoire – Les Amoureux, which similarly shows a giant pair of disembodied red lips floating in the sky over a city.

[3] The canvas is framed in an aluminum casing and exposed on the rooftop of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), which owns the artwork.

[3] In 1992, Geneviève Cadieux was asked by the MACM to create an artwork marking its relocation in a new building on the Place des Arts, as well as the 350th anniversary of the city of Montreal.

[3] Many interpretations of La Voie lactée revolve around the artwork's title, which is French for "the Milky Way", potentially evoking its placement against the Montreal sky.

[2] The art historian Julie Lavigne interpreted the title of La Voie lactée as evoking two symbols of motherhood: Mother Nature and lactation.

[1] She wrote that the theme of mother-daughter relationships coexists in the artwork with that of sexuality, associated with the image of female lips wearing red lipstick.

[1] According to the curator Josée Bélisle, the superimposition of a mother's lips over the natural landscape evokes "a symbol of language, creative power and the origin of existence.

[2] La Voix lactée is accompanied by an excerpt from a poem by the French Canadian writer Anne Hébert, who lived for some time in Paris:[2][note 4] Bien avant les images et les couleurs La source du chant s'imaginait À bouche fermée Comme une chimère captive Long before images and colours The source of the song was imagined With closed mouth Like a captive chimera.