Rivers of Power / Ríos de Poder

Title: Rivers of Power / Ríos de Poder

Photographer(s): Alejandro Cartagena

Writer(s): Ximena Peredo,Gonzalo Ortega

Designer(s): Alejandro Cartagena, Fernando Gallegos

Publisher(s): Self publishing and NEWWER, Mexico

Year: 2016

Print run: 490

Language(s): English, Spanish

Pages: 144

Size: 23 x 30 cm

Binding: Softcover in Box

Edition:

Print: Printed in Spain

Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Mexico,1908-2010

ISBN: 9780996669719

Rivers of Power by Alejandro Cartagena explores the relationship between man and nature and the futile human attempts to try to control it. Nature in this case is represented by the Catarina River that flows through the Mexican city of Monterrey. Its empty and seductive river bed seems to invite entrepreneurs to take advantage of those open and free spaces. The photobook also tells of how man soon forgets that the normal course of river water can raise hell during hurricanes from the Caribbean. Cartagena mixes historical photographs of the first attempts to control the course of the river with his documentary investigation of colour photographs. The design of the book is very reminiscent of its contents: the book is flexible and ‘naked', like the river water, and is enclosed in a hard case, similar to the pipes and tubes used to control the water, which seem to collapse when the inner book is removed.