Before the War — Alejandro Cartagena — Second Edition

Before the War asks how a place changes when its photographs are viewed through the knowledge of what happened there later. Alejandro Cartagena brings together images and texts connected with Nuevo León, Mexico, revisiting scenes that preceded the violence of the drug war. Apparently ordinary settings become charged with uncertainty: the reader searches for traces of a threat that was not visible when the photographs were made. Rather than depicting atrocities directly, the work explores the unease, confusion and vulnerability that violence leaves in collective experience. Its combination of a booklet, poster and foldout extends the act of reading beyond a single sequence of pages, inviting the viewer to assemble relationships between images, places and memory.

Technical Sheet
Artist and publisher: Alejandro Cartagena
Edition: Second edition; 250 copies
Publication year: 2015, as listed in the publisher’s product sheet
Pages: 102
Contents: 1 booklet, 1 poster and 1 foldout
Dimensions: 30 × 23.5 cm
Printing: Risograph and offset
Editor: Fernando Gallegos
Design concept: Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos
Editorial design: Roberto Salazar
Printers: Crater Invertido and Oscar Carnevali
ISBN: Not assigned by the publisher