Julián Cardona (photojournalist)

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Julián Cardona, January 17, 2020

Julián Cardona (18 August 1960 – 21 September 2020) was a Mexican photojournalist who was known for documenting poverty and violence in the city of Ciudad Juárez.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Early life[edit]

Julián Cardona was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, on August 18, 1960. His family moved to Ciudad Juárez when he was a young child. Raised by his grandparents, and with only a ninth grade education, he taught himself to use a camera professionally by age twenty. He worked in the maquiladora industry until 1991, when he moved back to Zacatecas to teach photography.[3][1][2][7]

Career[edit]

Although he had earlier done some photography for tabloids, in 1993 Cardona began to work professionally as a photojournalist at the Ciudad Juárez newspapers El Fronterizo and El Diario de Juárez. He co-authored many newspaper and magazine articles along with several books, including Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future and Exodus/Exodo, both with journalist Charles Bowden. His photographs have also been profiled in several major exhibitions, including Nothing to See (1995), Borders and Beyond (2001), Lines of Sight: Views of the U.S./Mexican Border (2002),[8] Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 (2003), the History of the Future (2009),[9] and Stardust: Memories of the Calle Mariscal (2013).[10] Cardona worked for several years as a Reuters correspondent in Mexico beginning in 2009, and he also was a photography editor in Mexico City. During the final years of his life he worked as a freelance journalist and photographer.[1][2][3][5][4][7]

Impact[edit]

Cardona was considered to be one of the most important photographers documenting the economic challenges and criminal drug-related violence in Mexico along the U.S. border, especially in Ciudad Juárez.[2][3][5][4] His photographs were sometimes criticized for their graphic portrayal of violence, including torture, rape, and murder victims.[11] Other critics observed that Cardona linked the extreme violence and femicide in border cities like Juarez with globalization and especially the influx of Maquiladoras (factories),[12] something that Cardona himself acknowledged and emphasized in interviews.[4][13][14][15][16] Interviewed on the PBS NewsHour in 2012, Cardona said that "It's an important story, how a city becomes the most violent city on earth. I was able to do it, and I'm OK with that. It's my job."[17]

Publications[edit]

  • Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future, 1998, Aperture Press (with Charles Bowden)
  • Morir Despacio: Una Mirada al Interior de las Maquiladoras en la Frontera E.U./México, 2000
  • No One is Illegal: Fighting Violence and State Repression on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 2006, Haymarket Books (with Justin Akers Chacon and Mike Davis)
  • Exodus/Exodo, 2008, University of Texas Press (with Charles Bowden)
  • "Market Driven Merciless Violence," Justice Rising, Spring 2008, pp. 8-9
  • Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields, 2011, Nation Books, (with Charles Bowden)
  • Stardust: Memories of the Calle Mariscal, 2014, University of Texas at El Paso, Rubin Center for the Visual Arts
  • Abecedario de Juárez: an illustrated lexicon, 2021, University of Texas Press (with Alice Leora Briggs)[18]

Death[edit]

Cardona died of natural causes on September 21, 2020, in Ciudad Juárez.[19][20]

Legacy[edit]

Cardona received the Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation in 2004.[21] Cardona’s photographic archives are preserved by the Tom and Ethel Bradley Center in the University Library, Special Collections and Archives, California State University, Northridge.[22][2][23]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "About Julián Cardona (1960-2020)". Tom and Ethel Bradley Center Photographs. California State University, Northridge. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Julián Cardona Collection". Peek in the Stacks. Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge. March 12, 2019. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d Bowden, Charles (Spring 2000). "Camera of Dirt: Juarez Photographer Takes Forbidden Images in Foreign-Owned Factories". Aperture (159): 26–33.
  4. ^ a b c d Molloy, Molly (April 2, 2016). "Economic Violence in Ciudad Juárez: An annotated conversation with journalist Julián Cardona about the economic history of Juárez-and how understanding that history helps explain the extreme violence experienced there from 2008 to 2012". NACLA Report on the Americas. 48 (2): 157–166. doi:10.1080/10714839.2016.1201275. S2CID 185682599. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Bowden, Charles (December 1996). "While you were sleeping: in Juarez, Mexico, photographers expose the violent realities of free trade". Harper's Magazine.
  6. ^ Lum, Jessica (July 11, 2012). "Photojournalist Julian Cardona on Documenting the Evolution of Juarez". Petapixel. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  7. ^ a b "Julián Cardona". Lannan Art Collection. Lannan Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  8. ^ Cheng, Scarlet (March 24, 2002). "Looking Both Ways Across the Border". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  9. ^ Sutor, Nancy (2009). "The History of the Future". Blue Star Contemporary. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  10. ^ "Stardust: Memories of the Calle Mariscal". Rubin Center for the Visual Arts. University of Texas at El Paso. 2013. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  11. ^ Driver, Alice (2015). More or Less Dead: Feminicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation in Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. p. 26-31.
  12. ^ Volk, Steven; Schlotterbeck, Marian (2007). "Gender, Order, and Femicide: Reading the Popular Culture of Murder in Ciudad Juárez". Aztlán. 32 (1): 53–. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
  13. ^ Isaad, Virginia (April 2012). "More than Words: Photojournalist captures the violence in Mexico". El Nuevo Sol. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
  14. ^ Driver, Alice; Cardona, Julián (2012). "En Juárez la fotografía como tal muestra sus límites: una entrevista con el fotoperiodista Julián Cardona". Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies. 16: 183–200. doi:10.1353/hcs.2012.0007. S2CID 144951529. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  15. ^ Warner, Margaret (June 29, 2012). "Mexican Photographer Captures Shades of Juarez". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  16. ^ Martinez, Michael; Hurtado, Jacqueline (April 16, 2012). "Photographer captures suffering, endurance in 'murder capital of the world'". CNN.com. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  17. ^ Margaret Warner (June 29, 2012). Mexican Photographer Captures Shades of Juarez (Video). PBS NewsHour. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  18. ^ Benavides, Jose Luis (November 21, 2022). "Nada Que Ver: On Julián Cardona and Alice Leora Briggs's "Abecedario de Juárez"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  19. ^ Cono, Luis Carlos (September 22, 2020). "Fallece reconocido fotografo juarense". El Diario. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  20. ^ Benavides, Jose Luis (2020). "Remembering Julian Cardona". Los Angeles United Methodist Museum of Social Justice. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  21. ^ Sáenz, Benjamin (2005). "Julián Cardona". CUE Art Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  22. ^ "CSUN Acquires Works by Mexican Photographer Julián Cardona". CSUN Today. California State University, Northridge. January 16, 2013. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  23. ^ Hernandez, Lucy (2012). "Guide to the Julián Cardona Collection" (PDF). Online Archive of California. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
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