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(Please hit the HD button when watching this video!) The small town of Angangueo is a colourful little place surrounded by mountains in the central Mexican state of Michoacan. On May 3rd they celebrate el Dia de Santa Cruz with enough fireworks to blow up a small planet. El Dia de Santa Cruz (Day of …
Continue reading "PhotoVideo ¡ Dia de Santa Cruz ! Angangueo, Michoacan"
Also known as scribes, they continue to be in demand, writing letters for estranged lovers and complaints to government MEXICO CITY—Typewriters are long thought to be a thing of the past, or an essential piece of vintage decor, but not in Santo Domingo Square in Mexico City. Here, some 20 escribanos sit outside, behind their …
Continue reading "Mexico’s escribanos: sending email without the internet (The Toronto Star)"
Fascinated by the varying uses of public space, Visual Anthropologist Paola Frances Garnica and I documented the use of a particular street in Mexico City. Looking at Filadelfia Street in the area Benito Juarez, we explored how the stability of the street can guide people's actions (for example, where there is a chair I will …
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist or writer. Since 2006, over 46 Mexican journalists and writers have been killed or disappeared, and their lives continue to be threatened. As a result, many journalists and media outlets have opted to sensor themselves and have stopped reporting on …
Continue reading "Fighting Impunity in Mexico – An interview with John Ralston Saul (PEN Canada)"
Last week, students of Oaxaca, Mexico protested the new education reforms recently passed by Mexico’s new president Enrique Pena Nieto. President Nieto has been very busy lately enacting new reforms. Many international media have been hailing the education reforms as being a positive thing for the country, since Mexico’s public school system is largely seen …
Continue reading "Oaxaca’s Diversity at Odds with Mexico’s Education Reforms"
Every Tuesday evening a group of men gather together to put on tight spandex pants, form fitting masks, bright capes, and in some cases lather themselves with oil and enter a ring to try to pin each other down for three seconds. Welcome to Mexican Wrestling, known in Spanish as Lucha Libre. Lucha Libre differs …
Continue reading "Lucha Libre – Theatre, Sport or Critique of Capitalism?"
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) The bus was more full than all the other transit I had taken so far. We were on our way from San Antonio, Texas down to Mexico. I was feeling anxious because I felt that I didn’t have space …
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) I woke up on a Texan’s couch in Austin at 10:00 am to these words: “You ready for some bar-b-q?” We arrived in the line up at Franklin’s Barbecue at 11:00 where a staff member told us that we …
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) About half way through Missouri a whole new set of heads emerged in the dinning car. That’s when I met Buzz. Buzz was sitting with a man that he clearly just met. Much like the Texan earlier, Buzz was …
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) He had shaggy blond hair that flowed out of his cowboy hat and piercing blue eyes. He was clean-shaven, had a slender built and couldn’t have been older than 25. He wore a stripped shirt that he tucked into …
Kimberley (Michelle) Brown 