University of Arizona Press

Chapter Title: INTERVIEW: Photographer Julián Cardona on Juárez and the Limits of
Photography
Chapter Author(s): Driver and Julián Cardona

Book Title: More or Less Dead

Book Subtitle: Feminicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation in Mexico
Book Author(s): Alice Driver
Published by: University of Arizona Press. (2015)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183pdf1.6

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

University of Arizona Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to More or Less Dead

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 interview

Photographer Julián Cardona

on Juárez and the Limits
of Photography

Since 1993, Mexican Julián Cardona, a photojournalist who lives in

Juárez, has documented the existing economic and physical violence in
the city that is a result of globalization. Cardona, in his artist statement,
explains, “In a flat world, the only frontier to conquer is the empty space
within ourselves, and for some reason, we try to fill that space with goods
and entertainment.”1 In 1995, Cardona organized Nothing to See, a pho-
tographic exhibition that led to his first collaboration with U.S. author
Charles Bowden, the book-­length photo essay Juárez: The Laboratory of
Our Future (1998). The book analyzes the consequences of globalization
in Juárez. Cardona and Bowden also collaborated to produce Exodus/Exo-
dus (2008), a project that examines the harsh reality faced by immigrants
trying to cross the border between Mexico and the United States. In 2000,
Cardona’s photos were published in the Aperture magazine article “Cam-
era of Dirt: Juárez Photographer Takes Forbidden Images in Foreign-­
Owned Factories,” written by Bowden. Cardona has also participated in
numerous exhibitions, including Borders and Beyond, which opened in
Zurich in 2001 and was exhibited in twenty-­seven countries.2
Cardona was born in Zacatecas, but his family moved to Juárez when
he was a child. After graduating from vocational training, he worked for
a time as a technician in a maquiladora in Juárez. In 1991 Cardona, a
self-­t aught photographer, moved to Zacatecas to teach photography at the
city’s cultural center. In 1993, he returned to Juárez to work with newspa-
pers the Border and El Diario de Juárez.

26
This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Photographer Julián Cardona  • 27

I interviewed Cardona on August 20, 2010, in El Paso, Texas, and we

discussed feminicide, the ethics of representing violence, and Juárez: The
Laboratory of Our Future.

Driver:  There is a lot of criticism about Juárez: The Laboratory of

Our Future, especially by academics. It has been labeled a “sensa-
tional” book. How do you respond to this criticism?
Cardona:  There was always a lot of criticism. When we published
the book, people questioned its crudeness. That was in 1998, and
over ten years have passed since it was published. Now everything
it referred to has become reality. What happened then and what
I depicted in my photos is hardly violent compared to the real-
ity now. Now we experience violence that is ten or fifteen times
worse than what the book reports. The main purpose of the book
was not to criticize Juárez. People who participated in the book,
myself in particular—I’m a person who loves Juárez so much that
I live in Juárez. We love Juárez. The book draws attention to an
economic system that was established in Juárez and that, in our
view, was very questionable. It portrays a violent society, one that
was emerging at that time. Now that violence reached unimagi-
nable extremes.
Driver:  As a photographer, do you believe it is necessary to show
graphic violence to promote justice? Is there another way to pro-
mote change? What are your ethics about representing violence?
Cardona: [In the book] there are pictures of clear physical violence
but also photos of obvious economic violence. When you’re por-
traying a society in which the economic system is completely dys-
functional, you should not only consider the physical violence
that occurs in such inequitable society, you must also consider
the economic violence, which gives way to the first. For example,
at the beginning of the book there is a photograph of a house
made ​​of cardboard waste leftover from the maquiladora with a girl
showing a ragged doll. This is as violent as [photographer] Jaime
Bailleres’s photo of the face of a dead woman who was raped and
burned.
Driver:  Do you use the term feminicide?
Cardona:  I try to use, whenever possible, legal terms.
Driver: What is your opinion about the debate over the evolu-
tion of the term feminicide? Is it more appropriate to talk about

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 28  • Interview

feminicides or to talk about violence against women? How should

we talk about this kind of violence?
Cardona:  I don’t enter into these debates because there is a ten-
dency to use euphemisms in both the United States and Mexico.
For example, Cuba did not have “economic crisis,” it had a “spe-
cial period.” I try not to get into discussions about terms. Instead
of calling it a recession, they call it an “economic downturn.”
Language is something that [over time] becomes politically cor-
rect or politically incorrect.
Driver:  I acknowledge that more men are murdered in Juárez than
women and recognize that it as an important issue, but the prob-
lems related to violence against women are different. Yes, there
are women in drug trafficking. However, I think it is necessary to
discuss cases of rape and domestic abuse differently.
Cardona:  There has been a trend in Mexican society to victim-
ize those who suffer from any type of crime, specifically homi-
cides. We have seen this in the last seventeen years in cases where
women have been killed. We have also seen it in Mexico, spe-
cifically in Juárez, which has become the most violent city in the
world. To me as a writer, I don’t care if more or less women are
murdered in terms of percentage. It is the same thing if 6 percent
or 10 or 15 percent [are murdered]. To me, what is truly terrible is
that we have a level of impunity of almost 100 percent—whether
it is against women, children, old people, or men. I don’t know
how the government, and in many cases the media, can tell some-
one that they died because they deserved it—“she deserved it be-
cause she was a woman,” “she deserved it for being a woman who
wasted her life,” “he deserved it because he was a narco,” or “she
deserved it because she was a narca.”
I think we all have the right to choose what we do in our life,
the life that we lead. The State must be an entity that allows us
to coexist peacefully, to live a healthy life, and to develop as a so-
ciety. That does not exist in Mexico today. The level of sadism is
overwhelming, and it is largely a reflection of the impunity in the
country.
Driver:  What are your goals as a photographer? Is it your goal to
promote justice or social action? What is your role in the city?
Cardona: Since I started, even before I met Charles Bowden,
my main goal has always been to document. When we did the

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Photographer Julián Cardona  • 29

first exposition, the purpose was to document and leave a re-

cord of something that was happening and that, in our view, was
important.
Driver:  Are there times when you decide not to take a photo?
Cardona:  I have begun to write more now because the circum-
stances in Juárez show the limits of photography. Right now, with
just photography, it is practically impossible to portray what is
happening in Juárez. People experience such degrees of trauma
that they are not able to share experiences or to be photographed.
The reality that you can photograph in Juárez is very reduced.
Photography can be very violent and very graphic, but it does not
necessarily tell what is happening now in Juárez. There are lots
of elements at play in Juárez that are unphotographable. This is
why I decided to do interviews. I am of the opinion that showing
graphic violence does not give you a complete, thorough under-
standing of the multiple actors who are involved in the situation
in Juárez.
Driver:  It has been said in newspapers that there is a “blackout” in
the media in Juárez. What has been your experience? Is it more
difficult for you to work now?
Cardona:  There is a crisis in the media. In some ways, Juárez is
an exception. Cases of human rights violations, torture by the
army or federal police, what people have suffered when they have
been kidnapped by criminal gangs or other groups, have been
published by people in Juárez in the local media. In some cases,
the media has decided not to provide information as a means of
protection, but the print media has published a lot of information
that has allowed citizens to at least have a clearer picture of what
is going on. I have to say that there are some things that seem im-
portant to observe. The media in Juárez has produced, including
the newspaper El PM, a brutal display of violence that can result
in harm to the collective psyche of children. I think something
that needs to be taken into account is—who is your audience?
Parents are also responsible, and, in many cases, they do not take
this responsibility seriously. They go with their children to see the
crime scene—it’s a show.
Driver:  Something that interests me is how the city looks in terms
of symbols, banners, monuments, and graffiti to feminicide vic-
tims. Do you see the crosses in the city that were painted by the

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 30  • Interview

group Voces Sin Eco? How are citizens trying to promote the
memory of victims of violence?
Cardona:  In 1998 I documented the movement Voices Without
Echo, a movement that began with several families. I had to cover
it after the death of Sagrario González in April 1998. I would like
to note that it is unfair that Sagrario’s sister has been virtually for-
gotten. Guillermina González was so important in the movement
to demand justice, and she founded the group Voces Sin Eco with
five or six families. She became the leader, the strongest voice of
Voces Sin Eco. She came up with the symbol of the black cross on
a pink background. It is something that has been forgotten. I want
to talk about it because Guillermina has always been a woman
of great force. The protests of these families remains alive in the
crosses, in the thousands of crosses painted along the border.
Driver:  You began to take photos in 1993, the year that femini-
cides “began.”
Cardona:  When I started reporting in 1993, there was some con-
cern [about feminicide] at certain levels in certain circles, but
it was not something that was truly international. In my view, it
became an international concern with the Cotton Field murders.
Driver:  As a citizen, do you think there is a collective memory? Is
there an effort to remember victims of violence even though they
are poor? Or do people try to forget the violence?
Cardona:  The number of victims in Mexico is at twenty-­eight thou-
sand and heading for thirty thousand. Everything is lost in this
anonymity. This violence has overwhelmed any ability of society
to react. When you’re at a point where you just want to survive,
you stop worrying about a lot of things. Then the government and
any other entity with power can do what they want.
The State has given way to a parallel State. I want to be very ex-
plicit about this: the official version is that most of what happens
in Juárez is a drug war between gangs. Depending on the region,
it is said to be one gang against another. That’s too reductive; that
argument does not include the decomposition of the entire Mexi-
can system, one that we see every day. These circumstances that
we now witness are the result of a failed State.
Driver:  How do you explain the feminicides?
Cardona:  Femicide is an act of power that has to do with impunity.
Any act of power has to do with impunity. When have you seen

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Photographer Julián Cardona  • 31

the authorities arrive on time [to a crime scene]? Homicide is not

real if it is committed by police or by some middle-­class man, and
they can get away with it because of the great impunity that exists.
Driver: Have you ever thought of moving? Or will you stay in
Juárez regardless of what happens?
Cardona:  Look, sometimes I’m overwhelmed with so many cases.
You become saturated [with violence]. I can’t tell you more than
that. So far, I haven’t thought about leaving.

This content downloaded from 187.188.10.92 on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:00:00 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms