Alejandro Cartagena (born 1977) is a Dominican Republic-born Mexican photographer. His work is held in the collections of the

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Project ...

in Chicago,

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Cartagena has been shortlisted for the 2021

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is a prize awarded annually by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and The Photographers' Gallery to a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium i ...

Work

Cartagena is interested in the "effects of suburban sprawl on population growth and the environment in his home city" of Monterrey, Mexico. For ''Carpoolers'' (2014) he photographed construction workers from above, travelling to work along

Mexican Federal Highway 85 Federal Highway 85 (''Carretera Federal 85'') connects Mexico City with the Mexico–United States border at Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. Highway 85 runs through Monterrey, Nuevo León; Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas; Ciudad Valles, San Luis Potosí; ...

in the back of their contractors' trucks, in 2011. Highway 85 links the city centre and its wealthier parts with the surrounding

suburban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

Publications

Books of work by Cartagena

*''Suburbia Mexicana''. Daylight/Photolucida, 2010. . With an introduction by Karen Irvine, an essay by Gerardo Montiel Klint and a transcript of an interview by Lisa Uddin. Edition of 2000 copies. *''Carpoolers''. Self-published, 2014. *''Before the War''. Self-published, 2015. Edition of 200 copies. *''Headshots''. Self-published, 2015. *''Santa Barbara Return Jobs Back to US''. Skinnerboox, 2016. . With an essay by Jonathan Blaustein. Edition of 500 copies. *''Rivers of Power''. Newwer, 2016. . Edition of 500 copies. *''A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption''. Velvet Cell, 2017. . Edition of 500 copies. *''Santa Barbara Shame on US''. Skinnerboox, 2017. . With an essay by Blaustein. Edition of 500 copies. *''A Small Guide to Homeownership: Case Study: Mexico''. Velvet Cell 2020. With essays by Fernando Gallegos and Cartagena. First edition, first printing. First edition, second printing edition of 600 copies. *''Santa Barbara Save US''. Skinnerboox, 2020. . With an essay by Blaustein. Edition of 800 copies. *''Suburban Bus''. Velvet Cell, 2021. Edition of 500 copies. .

Other publications by Cartagena

*''We Love Our Employees''. Mexico City: Gato Negro 2019. Photographs by Alberto Flores Varela. *''Insurrection Nation''. Studio Cartagena, 2021. Magazine.

Awards

*2021: Shortlisted,

, London for ''Centralia''; along with

Poulomi Basu Poulomi Basu (born October 1983) is an Indian artist, documentary photographer and activist, much of whose work addresses the normalisation of violence against marginalised women. Basu received the Royal Photographic Society's Hood Medal for th ...

Cao Fei Cao Fei ( zh, 曹斐; born 1978) is a Chinese multimedia artist born in Guangzhou, China, Guangzhou. Her work, which includes video, performance, and digital media, examines the daily life of Chinese citizens born after the Cultural Revolution. Her ...

, and

Zineb Sedira Zineb Sedira (born April 1st, 1963) is a London-based Franco-Algerian feminist photographer and video artist, best known for work exploring the human relationship to geography. Sedira was shortlisted for the 2021 Deutsche Börse Photography Fou ...

Collections

Cartagena's work is held in the following permanent collections: *

, San Francisco: 7 prints (as of July 2021) *

, Chicago: 8 prints (as of July 2021) *

: 3 prints (as of July 2021) * Santa Barbara Museum of Art: 2 prints (as of July 2021)

References

External links

* 21st-century Mexican photographers People from Santo Domingo Living people 1977 births {{Photographer-stub