Alejandro Cartagena

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conf...lict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

For those who want to help out a bit more with this independent publishing project and want a print with the book, I am offering an edition of 100 signed and numbered books in a cute handmade envelope made by @florilegio_ . To get a copy go to@my Instagram bio and go to my linktree link. Publication date 2021 ***(Shipping starts in August)... 21.5 X 33.5 cm Hardcover, 112 pages, Offset printing Signed and numbered Edition of 100 with one 8 x 12 inch C-print Edited by Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos Text by Brad Feuerhelm Editorial Design by Alejandro Cartagena Printed in Istanbul by Mas Matbaa Published by Los Sumergidos and Alejandro Cartagena See more

So excited for my whole team with this news! Suburban Bus has been Shortlisted for the @aperturefnd +@parisphotofair Book of the Year Award! Congratulations @gallegosfer @thevelvetcell @florilegio_ A book edited and designed during a troubled time in our world. This book is one of those miracles that happened to the whole team. ( ) Copies available here: ... https://tienda.alejandrocartagena.com/ See more

Finally. 3 new books out from Studio Cartagena. Carretera Nacional by Melba Arellano, published by @los_sumergidos Carpoolers #4, published by @los_sumergidos ... Suburban Bus, published by @thevelvetcell Congrats to the whole Studio team especially @gallegosfer and @florilegio_ for your work and support.

The new website www.alejandrocartagena.com is a light box to see my work throughout the years. You see the work how you want to see it. We designed it to offer an opportunity to see the evolution and breadth of the work. We imagine it like going to the library and pulling out a set of books and then looking one beside the other to compare the photographs, design, paper, etc. I Hope you like it.

Finally. 3 new books out from Studio Cartagena. Carretera Nacional by Melba Arellano, published by @los_sumergidos Carpoolers #4, published by @los_sumergidos ... Suburban Bus, published by @thevelvetcell Congrats to the whole Studio team especially @gallegosfer and @florilegio_ for your work and support.

The third book published this year by our team is Carpoolers #4 under the @los_sumergidos publishing project. 3 versions prior to this one have sold out. We are happy to remix this last version and offer another experience about the work. Thanks @gallegosfer @florilegio_ @loretdem @ordinarylight @masmatbaa for coming together as a team to do this beautiful cultural object.

As a photographer you don’t normally get a chance to rethink book projects... once they are published they seem to be cast in stone. I guess some works need that. Once faced with the opportunity to do a second edition of the sold out Carpoolers #1 book, I felt it useless to my carrier to just copy paste the first book and publish more books... so for every consequent book of the project, we’ve reimagined what new things and places the images can go and do. For this edition, w...e concentrated on creating a context around the book; this is a book about the carpoolers and the surrounding cars and highway... a book that suggests the cities and activities that happen parallel to the project. It is also an opportunity to show you more of the making of the work with mistakes being not mistakes but an opportunity to understand how I work. Publication date 2021 ***(Shipping starts in August) 21.5 X 33.5 cm Hardcover, 112 pages, Offset printing Edited by Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos Editorial Design by Alejandro Cartagena Printed in Istanbul by Mas Matbaa Published by Los Sumergidos and Alejandro Cartagena

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell The text for the catalogue was written by the amazing Tatiana Bilbao. @tabilbaoestudio About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both ...the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conflict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

In 2014 I decided to take on the adventure of self publishing a book of the Carpoolers project. @gallegosfer and I designed, sequenced and put together what we thought could be a good photobook. We invited Savvy Studio to help with fine tuning the design and the wonderful Jessica McDonald to write a text. We embarked into a year long process that introduced us to working with book shops, distributing, shipping, boxing and packaging, printers, pre-press etc etc etc. it was def...initely harder that we thought. Now after 6 years and 3 sold out versions of the project turned into books we are releasing Carpoolers #4; a new book, with new design, new sequence and new images. This time am paring up with my great friend @loretdem and our joint indi publishing house @los_sumergidos to put this beautiful book out there in the world. More info on the next post. To buy a copy go to my website or find a link in my Instagram Bio https://tienda.alejandrocartagena.com

The third book published this year by our team is Carpoolers #4 under the @los_sumergidos publishing project. 3 versions prior to this one have sold out. We are happy to remix this last version and offer another experience about the work. Thanks @gallegosfer @florilegio_ @loretdem @ordinarylight @masmatbaa for coming together as a team to do this beautiful cultural object.

For those who want to help out a bit more with this independent publishing project and want a print with the book, I am offering an edition of 100 signed and numbered books in a cute handmade envelope made by @florilegio_ . To get a copy go to@my Instagram bio and go to my linktree link. Publication date 2021 ***(Shipping starts in August)... 21.5 X 33.5 cm Hardcover, 112 pages, Offset printing Signed and numbered Edition of 100 with one 8 x 12 inch C-print Edited by Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos Text by Brad Feuerhelm Editorial Design by Alejandro Cartagena Printed in Istanbul by Mas Matbaa Published by Los Sumergidos and Alejandro Cartagena See more

The new website www.alejandrocartagena.com is a light box to see my work throughout the years. You see the work how you want to see it. We designed it to offer an opportunity to see the evolution and breadth of the work. We imagine it like going to the library and pulling out a set of books and then looking one beside the other to compare the photographs, design, paper, etc. I Hope you like it.

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conf...lict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

In 2014 I decided to take on the adventure of self publishing a book of the Carpoolers project. @gallegosfer and I designed, sequenced and put together what we thought could be a good photobook. We invited Savvy Studio to help with fine tuning the design and the wonderful Jessica McDonald to write a text. We embarked into a year long process that introduced us to working with book shops, distributing, shipping, boxing and packaging, printers, pre-press etc etc etc. it was def...initely harder that we thought. Now after 6 years and 3 sold out versions of the project turned into books we are releasing Carpoolers #4; a new book, with new design, new sequence and new images. This time am paring up with my great friend @loretdem and our joint indi publishing house @los_sumergidos to put this beautiful book out there in the world. More info on the next post. To buy a copy go to my website or find a link in my Instagram Bio https://tienda.alejandrocartagena.com

So excited for my whole team with this news! Suburban Bus has been Shortlisted for the @aperturefnd +@parisphotofair Book of the Year Award! Congratulations @gallegosfer @thevelvetcell @florilegio_ A book edited and designed during a troubled time in our world. This book is one of those miracles that happened to the whole team. ( ) Copies available here: ... https://tienda.alejandrocartagena.com/ See more

As a photographer you don’t normally get a chance to rethink book projects... once they are published they seem to be cast in stone. I guess some works need that. Once faced with the opportunity to do a second edition of the sold out Carpoolers #1 book, I felt it useless to my carrier to just copy paste the first book and publish more books... so for every consequent book of the project, we’ve reimagined what new things and places the images can go and do. For this edition, w...e concentrated on creating a context around the book; this is a book about the carpoolers and the surrounding cars and highway... a book that suggests the cities and activities that happen parallel to the project. It is also an opportunity to show you more of the making of the work with mistakes being not mistakes but an opportunity to understand how I work. Publication date 2021 ***(Shipping starts in August) 21.5 X 33.5 cm Hardcover, 112 pages, Offset printing Edited by Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos Editorial Design by Alejandro Cartagena Printed in Istanbul by Mas Matbaa Published by Los Sumergidos and Alejandro Cartagena

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conf...lict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

Finally. 3 new books out from Studio Cartagena. Carretera Nacional by Melba Arellano, published by @los_sumergidos Carpoolers #4, published by @los_sumergidos ... Suburban Bus, published by @thevelvetcell Congrats to the whole Studio team especially @gallegosfer and @florilegio_ for your work and support.

Finally. 3 new books out from Studio Cartagena. Carretera Nacional by Melba Arellano, published by @los_sumergidos Carpoolers #4, published by @los_sumergidos ... Suburban Bus, published by @thevelvetcell Congrats to the whole Studio team especially @gallegosfer and @florilegio_ for your work and support.

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell The text for the catalogue was written by the amazing Tatiana Bilbao. @tabilbaoestudio About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both ...the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conflict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

Doing books has become the natural home for my work. There is something about arranging a sequence of images, paring it with a certain design, paper and typography that make the images become something new. Having this opportunity to suggest meaning through Photobook montage is something we at the studio research and develop constantly... so looking back at work that we have published to criticize it and question it, is a common practice for us. Opportunities come from this.... These 4 versions of the carpoolers work is a testament to this practice. My collaborating editor for these 4 books @gallegosfer puts it this way: When we first started working on the first Carpoolers book we thought we had to do a book that looked like a photobook, we were influenced by many of our favorite books of the moment and we wanted to use similar resources to make the Carpoolers images look great. We tried many layout ideas but we couldn’t get it exactly right so we kept going back to a somewhat traditional layout. Those things that we experimented on that first dummy didn’t work because the way we thought about the images wasn’t asking for it, but since we had the chance to make a second and third versions years later, our thoughts about the project itself evolved... and as it turned out, our intuition about some of the things we tried on that first book found their place on those consequent versions. If the first Carpoolers #1 is about finding those people hidden in the landscape, Carpoolers #2 is about empathizing with them, and Carpoolers #3 is about the way the city buries them in plain sight. Now, Carpoolers #4 gave us the opportunity to think about the Carpoolers as people that flow with the movement of the city itself and resulted in a much more fluid and rhythmic edition about a city in constant motion.

Doing books has become the natural home for my work. There is something about arranging a sequence of images, paring it with a certain design, paper and typography that make the images become something new. Having this opportunity to suggest meaning through Photobook montage is something we at the studio research and develop constantly... so looking back at work that we have published to criticize it and question it, is a common practice for us. Opportunities come from this.... These 4 versions of the carpoolers work is a testament to this practice. My collaborating editor for these 4 books @gallegosfer puts it this way: When we first started working on the first Carpoolers book we thought we had to do a book that looked like a photobook, we were influenced by many of our favorite books of the moment and we wanted to use similar resources to make the Carpoolers images look great. We tried many layout ideas but we couldn’t get it exactly right so we kept going back to a somewhat traditional layout. Those things that we experimented on that first dummy didn’t work because the way we thought about the images wasn’t asking for it, but since we had the chance to make a second and third versions years later, our thoughts about the project itself evolved... and as it turned out, our intuition about some of the things we tried on that first book found their place on those consequent versions. If the first Carpoolers #1 is about finding those people hidden in the landscape, Carpoolers #2 is about empathizing with them, and Carpoolers #3 is about the way the city buries them in plain sight. Now, Carpoolers #4 gave us the opportunity to think about the Carpoolers as people that flow with the movement of the city itself and resulted in a much more fluid and rhythmic edition about a city in constant motion.

I just received the catalog for the @dboersephotographyfoundation 2021 Prize. I was nominated for the prize for the Small guide to Homeownership book published by the Velvet Cell @thevelvetcell About the prize: The 2021 shortlist presents four highly individual artists, whose bold wide-ranging projects cover geographical territories from Algeria to China and explore issues affecting both the local and the global. From Poulomi Basu’s uncompromisingly complex depiction of conf...lict in Central India, Alejandro Cartagena’s scathing critique exploring the repercussions of homeownership and developments in northern Mexico, to Cao Fei’s dystopic multi-media fabrications that consider the enormous impact of technologies on lived experiences and Zineb Sedira’s generous auto-fictive exploration of memory, culture and belonging. All of the nominated projects use photography as a means of challenging political realities to convey subjective truths. This is the 25th anniversary of this long-standing and prestigious annual prize, which recognises artists and projects deemed to have made the most significant contribution to photography over the previous 12 months.

Carpoolers #3, 2018 Carpoolers #4, 2021 I remember approaching the Carpoolers 3 book in an almost I am done with this project attitude. I told Fernando, let’s make a book that breaks up the project. How could we make the images become something else? After many attempts and dummies, we ended up with an idea of Landscapes; every spread would be a landscape, were the parings of people, street, sky and colors would be a new picture. The more complicated these collages became w...e felt they were indeed breaking up the images...so to take it to an ultimate place we decided to include the discarded papers from the printing press. I had asked the printers to save all the paper that is used to test and clean the Offset machine so we could use them in the back of the book as a perfect unintended collage. For Carpoolers 4 we thought of the city. We asked the question about how to create a context for the project and not have only be a book of the project itself... something like if a sports photographer would pair the shots from the game with shots of spectators (I’m oversimplifying )... @gallegosfer puts it this way: Editing Carpoolers #4 was relatively easier this time. We had been thinking about this project for almost 10 years now. It has become a part of both Alejandro’s and my life, so when he decided that he wanted to make a fourth version we worked our way through the concept a lot faster than before. When we put the traditionally selected images with the previously discarded images on the wall, the feeling of a crowded street in constant movement became immediately evident to us. The urge to talk about the city itself and the carpoolers place in it was strong, so we started editing in that line of thought. Guided by what we know of a city like Monterrey, a city made for cars, we aimed for a sequence that felt relentless and chaotic, even with its 112 pages the book feels fast-paced just like a city that rarely stops to think things through.