Photos of Car-Pooling Migrants Reveal Another Layer to Mexico's Hyper-Urbanization
Photographer Alejandro Cartagena gets a snapshot of life from a unique angle: directly above the highway in the suburbs of Monterrey, Mexico. His series Car-Poolers documents the travels of commuting workers who drive daily from homes in the city's outer suburban sprawl to jobs more centrally locate
[This post has been corrected, see bottom for details]
Photographer Alejandro Cartagena gets a snapshot of life from a unique angle: directly above the highway in Monterrey, a city in the north of Mexico. His series Car-Poolers documents the travels of commuting workers who drive daily from homes outside the city to jobs more centrally located. The truck beds caught by Cartagena’s camera present open windows not only into the personal lives of Mexico’s working class but the country’s environmental and infrastructural problems as well.
The Car-Poolers project follows up on Cartagena’s previous work shooting Mexico City’s empty suburban developments in Suburbia Mexicana: Fragmented Cities. The photographs in that dramatic series depict long tracts of newly constructed, cookie-cutter family homes without a person in sight. They form an origin story to Cartagena’s weary travelers, who stretch out in the little space available to them, stranded on the highway, killing time by sleeping or reading.
Quickly growing cities in Mexico and around the world need a constant supply of labor to function, and, much like in China’s major cities, that means that workers must travel from elsewhere into the city for work. China’s migrant labor pool might make their homes in pop-up dorm structures, the Mexican workers Cartagena shoots turn their vehicles into temporary houses for the long commute.
We contacted Cartagena over email and asked him what started him off on his documentation of car-pooling, how he arranges the shots, and how he thinks about his relationship with his subjects.
Kyle Chayka: How did you first notice the car-poolers who were riding like this?
Alejandro Cartagena: I was on the look out for images that could address issues of the over-developed Mexican suburbia and its consequences on people’s everyday lives. I was taking pictures of traffic jams and came across a couple of them, and then took their picture. I left them aside for a couple of months trying to understand how they would relate to my work and eventually made a routine of going once or twice a week early in the morning. I’ve been doing that for a year and a half.
KC: In your description of the project, you talk about how the car-poolers are quietly contributing to the preservation of our planet by riding together. Are the photos meant to be looked at from an environmentalist angle?
AC: This is one of the many issues addressed in the work. It is something that came to mind after a while, but I definitely see it as something important. Transportation issues are completely disregarded in Mexico and this is an abstract way to talk about how people unconsciously contribute to a kind of ecological enterprise.
KC: The angle of the photographs is pretty precipitous. How did you set yourself up to get the shots?
AC: I stand on an overpass on a busy highway and wait for them to pass. I hand hold the camera and run from lane to lane. They are going around 60 kilometers-per-hour, so I have to shoot fast.
KC: Did anyone ever notice you taking photos of them?
AC: Yes, many do, but they rarely respond to it. I think they don’t understand what I am doing to some degree.
KC: There’s a pathos in how you capture people relaxing, entertaining themselves, or just killing time while in the cars. What kind of relationship do you have with your distant subjects?
AC: For me this is something amazing about the pictures: intimacy in public space. The fact that they do this commute makes me feel proud. Proud because they are willing to do whatever it takes to have an honest job. Things in Mexico are difficult, and jobs are somewhat scarce. I also relate to them in a more personal level as my grandfather was a construction worker and he himself did this with his fellow workers.
KC: What’s the strangest or funniest thing you saw someone doing in a truck bed?
AC: Nothing funny-funny. I am more in awe with what they do to survive!
See Alejandro Cartagena’s full “Car-Poolers” series on his website.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Cartagena’s photos were shot in Mexico City rather than Monterrey. We regret the mistake.
