Arte-Art / Environment / Mexico / Photography

Mexican photographer captures urbanization and its toll

By hola | Published August 18, 2014 | No Comments

In the Small Guide to Homeownership exhibit at the Art Museum of Americas, Mexican photographer Alejandro Cartagena questions what is sacrificed in order to urbanize some of Mexico’s most beautiful places.

The first series on display consists of “The Carpoolers Photos,” images apparently shot from highway overpasses. They show a variety of laborers, presumably construction workers and landscapers, resting in the back of pickup trucks speeding along the highway. No matter the weather, the men are exposed to the elements. Sometimes, they are side-by-side generating body heat. Others are wrapped in tarps or surrounded by tools, wood, and paint. The photographs show a collection of men—tired and hardworking—in moments of rest in a “comfortable” floor of a flatbed truck along Monterrey’s Highway 85, Cartagena notes.

The photographer also explores urbanization’s effect on nature. While these men are at work building homes for an ever-growing population, what is to become of once untouched nature? Cartagena captures desolate areas that were once teeming with life in his collection from the Surburbia Mexicana Series. In his photo, “Untitled Lost River #10,” he depicts the beauty of the mountains and glimpses of an area where once existed a sinuous river. As urban areas grow exponentially, natural beauty is falling dry.

In the northern Mexico city of Monterrey, urbanization plays between the edges of rich and poor. The proliferation of new buildings and homes suggests the city is thriving economically. Of course, those same factors are propelling the depletion of natural resources and the degradation of natural beauty. It can make way for greed, corruption and gang violence. And the urbanization creates new opportunities for class divisions amongst the city’s inhabitants.

“There’s so much money, there are so many people wanting to have more money, there’s so much ambition. The downside is there’s not enough jobs to have that money, so there’s a lot of poor people at the same time. So that speaks to the disparity. There’s so much wealth, but also so much poverty,” Cartagena said in an interview with Jonathan Blaustein, a blogger for aphotoeditor.com.

With the photos, among the few works he’s shot in Mexico, Cartagena says he aims to capture both the positive and the negative; the rich and the poor; the splendor and the squalor.

The photos are an expression of pride in being Mexican. Though he was born in the Dominican Republic, Cartagena moved to Mexico at an early age and has made it his home.

“I feel so lucky that I was so naive to go into those places,” he told Blaustein. “At this point of my life, I’m definitely Mexican. I feel Mexican, I love Mexican food, I love my city, I love my country.”

–Bria Baylor

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