In south Mumbai, at the edge of the city’s coast, you can find a little slice of Mexico. Don’t expect to see children blindly swatting at piñatas or people swaying to the tunes of ‘ La Cucaracha ’. What you will encounter, though, is how the country has made its way to India through an ongoing photography show.
Organised by the Embassy of Mexico, the ‘ Mexican Photography Exhibition’ features works from celebrated photographers Lourdes Almeida and Ana Dominguez Lombard. This showcase is part of larger celebrations planned to commemorate Mexico’s 206th Independence Day on September 16. The occasion is an attempt to bring to light realities that exist in Mexico, through a series of portraits that document families from different professions and storylines.
Exploring the pastLombard was born in 1974 in one of Mexico’s 31 federal states, Veracruz. After moving to London in 2005, when she got professionally involved with photography, the graphic designer and photographer decided to revisit her roots through a trip to her hometown.
She wanted to capture the ancient and contemporary aspects of the place through memory in a photo series titled ‘ Mi Veracruz ’ (My Veracruz).
Located in the Gulf of Mexico, Veracruz has been a trading hub for the past five centuries and houses numerous immigrant families. It’s the story of these neighbourhoods that interested Lombard, whose prints capture the people, customs, places and lives from the first half of the 20th century.
Lombard’s subjects include members of the Spanish casinos scattered around town, artistes from the Clavijero Theatre (named in honour of humanist Francisco Javier Clavijero), and flamenco dancers.
While her photographs offer insight into the trade unions and centuries-old Spanish traditions, they are unconvincing. Despite their sepia tone tinge — an attempt to bring forth the essence of a time gone past — the images seem to be more about grasping the perfection of the subject rather than stirring a sense of nostalgia. In photographs titled ‘The Beach’, Lombard has placed a mother with her children on the sands by the ocean to highlight a time when locals visited here to walk, sunbathe, rest and coexist. While the snippet of history gives the viewer a sense of the town’s culture, it misses out on the mood that brings forth her own attachment to the past.
Family timeOn the wall adjacent to ‘ Mi Veracruz ’, is a collection of photographs by Almeida, who has documented a variety of Mexican families she encountered on her travels through different regions back in the early 1990s.
Born in 1952 in Mexico City, Almeida has held over 85 solo exhibitions across Mexico, Latin America, USA, Europe and Asia. This particular collection, titled ‘ Mexican Family Portraits, ’ is a visual representation of the lifestyles, value systems, traditions, and beliefs that existed through the different homes.
While Lombard’s images seek the differences between past and present, Almeida chooses a demographic account. Her photographs offer a glimpse into Mexico through family size, surrounding environment and climate, prevalent fashion, and human relationships.
If seen with the sole purpose of illustrating the past, Almeida successfully captures the the distinction that existed within classes at the time. Whether it’s a family of shoemakers or white-collared professionals, every image is a helpful frame in documenting history.
Disparate though their motives may be, the two photographers have pieced together their interpretation of a land they call home. It’s always beautiful to see how one space, Mexico in this case, becomes a canvas for so many overlapping stories, historically, and otherwise.
The author is a freelance photographer
The ‘Mexican Photography Exhibition,’is on till tomorrow at Piramal Art Gallery, NCPA, Nariman Point, 12 p.m.-8 p.m.
