La Soledad y más allá (Solitude and then some)
Photographer: Keith Dannemiller
Exhibit Title: La Soledad y más allá (Solitude and then some)
Location: Mexico
The migrant camp at the side of the La Soledad Church in the La Merced barrio, that had been occupied for the last year, was razed on March 31, 2025 by public workers from Mexico City. The Venezuelans and Colombians, the majority of the population there, rebuilt their ‘ranchos’ of plastic and wood, in the nearby Parque Guadalupe Victoria. The inhabitants had been deported from the United States, were victims of CBP1 application cancellation on January 6, lacked the necessary legal documentation to travel through Mexico or did not want to return for the same political or economic reasons that made them leave home in the first place. The majority of the migrants I continue to photograph in the Vallejo camp in Mexico City, are without resources and/or documents to move anywhere, much less undertake the perilous journey back to their countries of origin.They remember well what they suffered on the journey to get here to Mexico or to the US. There is a real fear of undertaking the odyssey again in reverse. The number of marooned migrants grows by the day.
Gaza Al Ahli Hospital. Nueva Libertad/ El Colorado with Guatemalan refugees. Places I had photographed in the past. But I truly did not know what I was getting into when I started photographing in La Soledad. I knew when I started though, that I wanted the work to be human - to show the persons who have to live and try to survive under conditions that I would call ‘infrahumano’.
To do that required a commitment of time, emotion and guts. I wanted to be a human amongst these humans. I wanted to engage them not just photographically but personally. I wanted my self to be present in these images. I did not want some kind of journalistic objectivity to ruin such rich subject matter, and such an important humanistic theme, as migration. I wanted to shake up my process of making photos.
The traditional journalistic mode of operation would have me ‘auto-delete’ from the work of reporting and photographing. I did not want to do that. I did not want to hide. I did not want to look away. This work made me feel uncomfortable and questioning. And that was okay.
Keith Dannemiller
kdannemiller1@mac.com
www.keithdannemiller.com
IG: keithdannemiller
Facebk:keith.dannemiller
cel.+52-55-2932-1494
Ciudad de México, México
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