The Neighborhood Pool: Paseo de la Reforma x is a series of photographs that explores the current conditions of the vacant lot next to the historic La Lagunilla tianguis in Mexico City. This space, abandoned between 2019 and 2020, has become an open-air dump that floods every time it rains and serves as an improvised home for many homeless people.
The idea of documenting this liminal urban space arose from my daily passage through it. In the heart of Mexico City, this dump is proof of state neglect and a clear example of urban marginality in the center of the Mexican capital, showing how multiple peripheries coexist within Latin American mega-cities.
The facade of the unfinished hotel heightens the contrast between the promised pool, represented in the mural, and the neighborhood’s real pool, which is the flooded terrain filled with waste.
Reflecting on the city and the urban must include consideration of these conflicted and forgotten places, as their existence represents a risk for the population living around them. It’s important to highlight that behind this dump, if one crosses the threshold of the door we see here, one accesses a tenement where numerous families reside. Additionally, to the right is the Jaime Nuño elementary school.
This series is a wake-up call about urban spaces forgotten by the State and a denouncement of their existence.
