Julián Cardona (photojournalist)

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

Julián Cardona, January 17, 2020

Early life

Julián Cardona was born in Zacatecas, Mexico on August 18, 1960. His family moved to the city of Juarez 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

Although he had earlier done some photography for tabloids, in 1993 Cardona began to work professionally as a photojournalist at the Juarez 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

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 Juarez.[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
  • 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, 2021, University of Texas Press (forthcoming, with Alice Leora Briggs)

Death

Cardona died of natural causes on September 21, 2020 in Juarez.[18][19]

Legacy

Cardona received the Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation in 2004.[20] 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.[21][2][22]

References
  1. "About Julián Cardona (1960-2020)". Tom and Ethel Bradley Center Photographs. California State University, Northridge. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  2. "Julián Cardona Collection". Peek in the Stacks. Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge. March 12, 2019. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  3. Bowden, Charles (Spring 2000). "Camera of Dirt: Juarez Photographer Takes Forbidden Images in Foreign-Owned Factories". Aperture (159): 26–33.
  4. 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. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  5. 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. "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. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  15. Warner, Margaret (June 29, 2012). "Mexican Photographer Captures Shades of Juarez". PBS News Hour. 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. Cono, Luis Carlos (September 22, 2020). "Fallece reconocido fotografo juarense". El Diario. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  19. Benavides, Jose Luis (2020). "Remembering Julian Cardona". Los Angeles United Methodist Museum of Social Justice. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  20. Sáenz, Benjamin (2005). "Julián Cardona". CUE Art Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  21. "CSUN Acquires Works by Mexican Photographer Julián Cardona". CSUN Today. California State University, Northridge. January 16, 2013. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  22. Hernandez, Lucy (2012). "Guide to the Julián Cardona Collection" (PDF). Online Archive of California. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
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