The Fine Art of Travel: Suburbia Mexicana

In a major photographic project spanning over three years and five categories, Alejandro Cartagena examines the vast and interconnected problems caused by unplanned urban sprawl in Monterrey, Mexico. Since 2001, profit-driven policy has allowed extensive expansion of the city, contained only by the surrounding mountains. At this pace, the development of necessary amenities falls behind, and residents face an ever-growing distance between themselves and citizens in more affluent areas.

Effects are also found in the natural environment, with rivers particularly vulnerable (see the ‘Lost Rivers’ chapter). However, change is most keenly felt in ‘Fragmented Cities’, where Cartagena records, in trademark documentary style, the uniform rows of (strangely cheerful) houses invading the landscape.

© Courtesy of Circuit Gallery