Aquí el pueblo manda!
Images of Resistance in Mexico
2017-2019
Rosa María Barajas
The photos-stories of this exhibition introduce us to peoples who refuse
to be ignored or annihilated and instead keep resisting in one way or
another. They are images of Indigenous communities building Zapatista
autonomy; faces of Ayotzinapa parents and students protesting in Mexico
City; or fists of women demanding no more femicides and claiming
“respect our lives!"
October 4-25, 2019
Reception Oct 4 at 6 pm
Centro Cultural de la Raza
2004 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA, 92101
Balboa Park
Photography can teach us histories. The exhibition Aquí el pueblo manda! (Here the people rules!) portrays faces and stories that the system denies, pretends to hide or disguise as "folklore."
The photos-stories of this exhibition introduce us to peoples who refuse to be ignored or annihilated and instead keep resisting in one way or another. They are images of Indigenous communities building Zapatista autonomy; faces of Ayotzinapa parents and students protesting in Mexico City; or fists of women demanding no more femicides and claiming “respect our lives!" They are also photos taken while she traveled together with the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) in their campaign “Struggle for Life”.
Through photography, the author make us to feel us the pain and rage, but also the strength and hope that moves peoples who only demand respect to their lives.
Originally from a Purépecha colonized town and raised in Mexico City, the life brought Rosa María Barajas to the Tijuana-San Diego border in the 1990s. Transborder activist, Rosa María studied communication at both UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and San Diego City College where she obtained a degree while raising her little daughter. Free-lance photo-journalist for a while, her reality as a single mother forces her to abandon the photography for several years until 2017 when she has able to return and starts collaborating with independent media such as KPFK Informativo Pacifica in Los Angeles, and Ke Huelga Radio and Free Media Center in Mexico City.
By reporting on communities and social movements Rosa María realized the commercial media is nothing more than an instrument of domination and therefore we have to become our own media. She believes photography could portray people´s pain and resistance that mainstream media will hide, ignore or distort. Photography, radio and other independent electronic media have the power to change the narrative of our Story.
¡Aquí el pueblo manda! comes from a slogan used by Zapatista communities as well as the CNI: "Here the people rule and the government obeys." That is how it should be and someday it will be ...
