There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Walt Withman
We wait, hiding under the bushes; resting, talking in whispers. A whistle blowing in the distance becomes closer and closer. We stop talking. No more conversations about the villages we come from, about the food that we already miss. Everything becomes still; the whistle is close. Everybody stands up. The silence is deep and thick. My camera is ready. I can read the fear in the faces of my travel mates: the fear of not being able to climb up the passing train or worse: to die trying. They all think about what they have left behind about what is expecting them on the other side. We all wait for the train.
The locomotive passes in front of us; metal wheels screeching loudly. The travelers disseminate along the train tracks. They are ready. They run along with the train. The women go first, taking the younger ones with them. Some of them stumble and fall down. Some jump and start climbing. In the distance I can see them smile. They made it, they are alive, they are on. The ones left behind can breathe now. They are disappointed, but they are also alive. They go back to their sheltering bushes, to wait for the next train…
In the last years, my work has circled around the topic of migration in an attempt to deal not only with the socio-political aspects that it involves, but also with the deep personal processes experiences by people who are forced to migrate. I would like to present to you some images of to of my latest bodies of work. For the first series, Migracion, Suenos y Esperanzas del Sur (Migration, Dreams and Hope from the South), I accompanied undocumented migrants from Central America and Chiapas (a state in the south east of Mexico), both experiencing and recording their journey to the border of the United Sates . The second series, Lista de Articulos para un Viaje al Olvido (Travel Gadgets for a Trip to Oblivion) is a photographic inventory of the objects left behind in the Mexican desserts by migrants on their chase of the American Dream.
Working on these projects was for me an intense and emotional journey, that placed me in the midst of the dramatic reality of forced migrations. I could witness how this appalling experience brings out the extremes of people: from the strong will to have a better life to the solidarity among the travelers and the people they encounter trough their journey; from the pettiness of the governments that look over the reality of the migrants, to the meanness of the people that traffics with their dreams.
The migrants go through a long and painful journey. Hope grows on the lonely landscapes they cross, fed by the sweat, the hunger, the fear and strength of those men and women. Their peregrination forces us to review reality and become more conscious of injustice and inequity, exploitation and racism. Forced migrants from all over the world can only live day by day, holding on to a future that they don’t even know if it is there. They show us the saddest face of global mobility and take us to reflect upon the world we live in.
You can view more of these series at: www.loscaminosdelmigrante.blogspot.com
