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They are nothing more than a burnt outlines, hollow images lying dead on paper. They empty and anonymous. These pieces, as part of Miguel Aragón’s “Juarez Series”, are chilling windows into Juarez, the heart of the Mexican drug trade, and one of the deadliest cities in the world.
Since 2007, drug wars in Juarez have claimed the lives of over 10,000 men, women, and children. At stake: entry to the American drug market valued around $40 billion.[1] It is a war that is constantly changing shape, having evolved from a war between large and powerful gangs into a daily battle between more central and localized drug cells. The method of the fighting the war has changed as well. Dating from the Nixon administration in the United States to the end of President Calderon’s term in Mexico, authorities from both nations waged a full out war on drugs that debatably spilled more blood than it saved. Currently, however, President Nieto is enacting a policy change that promotes education for youth and conditional cash transfer programs to reduce drug violence.
Miguel Aragón’s piece, however, reminds us that despite all of the policy changes, Juarez is far from safe. His piece makes the war personal, forcing us to step back from the numbers and ideologies that muddle the debates, and to look at the war. Really look at the war. When looking at the painting we become emotional and feeling beings.
And when I do, I feel uneasy. Aragón’s piece is quiet and subdued. A sense of thoughtfulness draws me near and it serves as a reminder, in Aragon’s words, that “our physical existence is finite.” The violence rages on in Juarez and yet Aragón chooses to create images that are still and colorless.
But these images are grounded in reality. Aragón sources photographs from the media of Juarez and transforms images of violent deaths into really beautiful works of art. He uses a laser to create cardboard matrixes, and as the cardboard burns away, a layer of soot is created that is subsequently transferred to the paper. In this way, Aragón creates a great deal of tension as he transforms photographs of brutal slaughterings and makes them in quiet works of art. The tension between the two demands that we pay attention.
In a city where murder is a part of everyday life, as common as a breath, we fear desensitization will outshine compassion. But Aragón’s piece directly challenges this notion – mandating that we rethink disaster as a feeling people. Because while numbers and dates are helpful in understanding of disaster in an intellectual and removed way, that way is only a part of the puzzle. But Aragon’s series is unique as the war continues today; Juarez is not our history, but our present. And allowing Aragón to retool how we think about disaster helps us to not only understand our past, but also enables to make better decisions and policy changes today.
[1]. Jeremy Relph, “Growing up in the World’s Deadliest City” Buzzfeed. 7 March 2013 http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremyrelph/growing-up-in-the-worlds-deadliest-city