Social photography in Mexico remains marginalized because there are no spaces where it can be published , said Rodrigo Moya (Medellín, Colombia, 1934; naturalized Mexican), dean of photojournalism in Mexico.
In an interview with La Jornada , the artist considered that, in general, the major newspapers today " have no interest in spending four pages on a photo report; it's all about political issues and current events. Photo reports have been disappearing; they hardly exist ."
After intensively documenting life in the country and the continent in the 1950s and 1960s with his camera, Moya now finds it “a very intimate and powerful personal experience to see how Mexico has advanced in some areas and regressed in others ; in the most acute areas, such as housing and rural life, which I covered, all those people remain just as screwed .”
"That is to say, poverty is moving toward the outskirts, concentrating in certain cities, like Tijuana now . Social problems persist, and that hits me hard. Despite all the fantastic work President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done, the country needs to move forward through a process of autonomy, of breaking away from the empire.
"I see a country with alienated social classes. The middle class, completely oblivious to what's happening, is interested in nothing but competition, shopping, being like the other or better; it's a middle class that has a lot of power and has grown. When I took the photo, we were a fairly even middle class , with a few rich people here and there. Today, social problems persist, despite the tremendous and positive efforts that have been made recently," the photographer insisted.
Moya, 89, has had the privilege of experiencing and enjoying both sides of photography. "One is when you feel it and make the image according to certain convictions and themes; I've always done social photography. The other side is when, at an advanced age, you look back at your work and a swarm of memories and associations comes flooding back. You regret what you didn't capture , what we missed. Veteran photographers always regret what we missed for one reason or another, but I also really enjoy seeing what I did. It's what I'm experiencing today."
For 22 years, Rodrigo Moya and his wife Susan have lived in Cuernavaca, "that's why I don't make a big deal about it, because I'm not interested in being acclaimed. I live a very peaceful life and, with Susan, I dedicate myself to organizing my archive, which is very beautiful and visually spectacular. Everything is in folders. I have all the social movements of the time and the guerrillas. For example, I was the only foreign photographer who was in the invasion of the Dominican Republic in '65. Above all, I spend my time organizing . I do it with the desire that people who need something from my archive can find it easily, and that's already happening; many people seek me out and ask for many photos."
