Softcover, perfect bound
15.2 X 22.8 cm
360 pages
ISBN 978-1-908889-73-7
2020

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“The narrative progressively offers us all the elements to suggest what it will mean to own an American house in Mexico. It’s a timely work started before the biggest property crisis of all time. It’s a smart way to show what’s going on starting from facts. The causes and effects of a certain approach to capitalism, and its consequences on people and the environment. A behind the scenes look at the American Dream served with Tacos’ sauce that leaves us with a bittersweet question: does all of this make sense?”. — Giuseppe Oliverio

“It is difficult to pinpoint A Small Guide to Homeownership’s modus operandi. The work is in the form of a journey, but one that is more of a nebula than a linear progression. As a result, we are given no answers to questions that might be raised, nor are we shown a specific way of seeing, only a topic and its many tentacles. Numerous questions circulate and compete: Are we chasing the wrong dream? Have the suburbs failed in Mexico? Are we building a ‘new’ Mexico? Not all treaties, which begin with ponderings, must end with answers. Through an information overload, Cartagena makes visible a modern crisis, and the constant anxiety that exists as its background noise. Like a conductor, he uses his images as the highs and lows, a way to both soothe and extend the perplexing feeling of a heart beating too fast, of a room made small with clutter”. — Kyler Zeleny for Photo Eye

This book is an amalgamation of 13 years of work, starting with Fragmented Cities series made between 2005 and 2009 in which I documented the suburbanization of the Monterrey metro area in northern Mexico. This project began an exploration that led me to document the changes that this development brought to the city; from transportation, urban planning, infrastructure development, private and public bureaucracy, the challenges in people’s daily life to the ecological consequences of this unplanned growth.