Ciudad Concreto

Ana Lorena Ochoa, 2010

Lorena Ochoa, Ana and Elena Poniatowska, Intro. Ciudad Concreto. México, D.F.: Cresce Consultores, 2010. Oblong 28 cm, 135 pp.; 29 pp. bilingual front matter and introductory text, followed by 101 pp. reproducing Lorena Ochoa’s photographs (most sheets printed recto and verso); in blind stamped cloth, title to front board and spine, one photographic print trimmed and tipped-in to front cover, cloth a bit rubbed, v minor scratches to front photo visible in raking light. One of 330 copies with a signed photograph (digital print) in corner mounts inside the front board, numbered and signed verso. VG+

Lorena Ochoa’s photobook documents the mostly indigenous construction workers who built the “Segundo Piso” of the periférico, Mexico City’s massive new ring road. From 2004-2005 she photographed their dangerous labor on the road’s famous second level and the precarious living circumstances they inhabited nearby. Poniatowska describes her as the “first and perhaps the only woman … to climb up one of the gigantic towers.”

The photographs are intended to humanize a massive urban infrastructure project and understand its legacy in the lives of the people who built it. Following examples like Jorge Fon’s renowned film Los albañiles (1976), Lorena Ochoa unveils both invisible labor and invisible people while also providing a view on the changing landscape of the ever-expanding city and a perhaps unintentional consideration of masculinity.

No copies located in North American libraries.

(HOLD)