JONATHAN CHERRY: Can you name a couple of people who inspire you and why?

ALEJANDRO CARTAGENA: Lately I have been reading David Harvey and other social theorists. Maybe I am just a romantic and still believe that we can make a difference in the world, and these people are poignant on their theories about social and urban justice and that just really motivates me to do what I do. Music inspires me a lot too. Lately I´ve been listening to Ryan Adams, Monsters of folk, Frightened rabbit, Death Cab for Cutie. Photographically I get inspired by work that gives me a mental boost; things that are obvious but observed and conceptualized in ways that captivate me. Work by Paul Graham, Joel Sternfeld, Eugenio Espino Barros, August Sanders, Robert Adams, Joe Deal, Duane Michals, Les Krims, Jurgen Klauke, Ger Dekkers, Chargesheimer, Gerardo Montiel Klint and many others inspire me.

JC: What was the last photography book or magazine or zine you picked up?

AC: Foam talent edition and Securitas by Joan Fontcuberta

JC: What is your project ‘between borders’ all about?

AC: Between borders is a story of people trapped between a physical and ideological border. I came across the Division del Norte community by chance while working on a commission in Reynosa, in northeastern Mexico. The border has been something that has always attracted me. I live about 2 hours from the US border and have has a long term relationship with cities in Texas. When I started visiting this community I felt compelled to tell their story and to challenge my image making. I was fully convinced that “documenting” was something that I had indirectly done but had always searched for more conceptualized approaches, so I wanted to get into a story with no back ground just the actual interaction with the subject. These people live at the edge of drug dealers, “mañosos”, oil excavations, coyotes and a chaotic city. I started of with a simple question of why they have decided to live secluded from all that surrounds them?, and go from there. Eventually what I am striving for is to portray another side to the life in the US/Mexico border that is not all violence. At the end I can´t detach myself from trying to go further than just a “documentation”…

JC: What is the first photograph above all about?

AC: I was hanging out with some of the kids and they wanted to show me there house. when we got there the mother was watching a soap opera. I saw the TV from outside and waited for the picture. I love it because the scale is almost life size that it almost looks like a real person.

JC: Is there anything exciting on the horizon line that you are excited about?

AC: My new and in progress projects I will be working on this December-January. I feel a rush going back out to take pictures after a few months off.

JC: How do you feel the project ‘a symbolic layering’ is going so far?

AC: After finishing the Suburbia Mexicana project I felt I needed to shorten my way of producing work. That is, not to be so extensive with a body of work and try to summarise a big idea into 15 to 20 images. In that sense the project is half way done. Still, I have been photographing all threw 2009 and haven’t finished yet. Conceptually the work is very strong, at least for me, because I feel that again, as I did with Suburbia Mexicana, I am approaching a recurrent visual theme in photography but asking questions that stem towards an understanding and advancement of the urban structure and not mere “romantizations” of the man built structure. I am looking for an almost anthropological understanding of why these urban forms exist in the Latin American context and what I have observed is a prevalence of power impositions over functionality. This is why they are symbolic; they stand more as representations of corruption, lack of standards and planning and personal obsessions from the people either building them or ordering the building of them. Like a say in my statement: “In Latin America, and more specifically in México, we can phrase this situation as a pharaonic edifice where, as Ana Elena Mallet mentions in here text México City: From Constant Crisis to Failed Modernity, every six years, a new government in power presents delirious modernization projects that are bestowed to the coming generations; a sensationalistic gesture by which it tries to immortalize evidence of its desperate (and failed) attempt to overcome the irrevocable state of inertia.The contemporary Latin American city seems to be nothing more than a dissimilar group of symbolic layers where many physical infrastructures stand more as a sign of corruption, bad taste and the inability to plan but mostly as gestures of the lack of power citizens have in the construction of their habitable spaces. Finally these images stand as reminders of how as citizens we have been transformed, for we are subconsciously, to some point, the city in which we live”.

JC: How do you see this project developing?

AC: Basically what I am doing is observing the urban structure, looking for places where not only these structures stand out, but that at the same time there is a sense of intrusion. Most of the photographs I have taken include the structure from a view point where you can visualize how the structure is not completely mimetic with its surroundings; the architectural styles are different, businesses have been closed because of its imposition, there are blocked and unusable street lights, blocked facades, etc. Right know I am just roaming around 9 cities looking for similar situations that will help portray my point.

JC: How are you coping only photographing landscapes rather than portraits for ‘a symbolic layering’?

AC: This particular project came to me when I was convinced that urban landscape is a perfect reflection of society and in that sense I need not to do portraits. But I contradict myself sometimes. Now I am doing more portraits. I feel I need to be risky at the beginning of my career. There is absolute freedom to do what ever comes to my mind. I don’t know if that is forever.

JC: What equipment have you been using for this project?

AC: To make my work more effective and not be shooting like crazy I have been using a Sinar 4x5. It is expensive to shoot 4x5 in Mexico! and so this keeps me focused.

JC: Any other thoughts?

AC: It is an exciting time to photograph. Access to information and work from peers and many contemporary photographers permits you to confront your work and look for grander schemes. I think we cant be naive about what we photograph, and personally I think a commitment towards advancing the understanding of our world will produce an understanding of ourselves and photography is a medium that is very accessible for producers and viewers. I am looking forward for a crazy 2010.