citylikeyou — Christchurch / Erin Lee

Erin, nomadic being inspired by the unknown. Based as a freelance photographer for 5 years in Mexico and after a recent project in North Africa, Erin has recently returned to a base in Australia. Erin’s work applies environmental portraiture with landscapes and habitats to break the stereotypes which surround her subjects.

https://www.erinleephotography.com

Photographer

Current city: Mexico City

Other cities: Melbourne

erinleephotography.com

Mexico City / Bar

Mami Slut is one of the only dance parties in Mexico City with a mission to have decent music at queer friendly parties, Latin beats. Started by DJ Travieza and La Mendoza, the monthly celebration at Bahia Bar has become a premier gathering point for queer folks looking for a safe space to grind to reggaeton, cumbia, dembow, and basically anything other than the house music and Madonna songs that dominate the city's gay parties.

Mexico City / Music Venue

Plaza Garibaldi, home to Mexico City’s mariachis. Located along one of the city’s main avenues, Eje Central a few blocks from the Fine Arts Palace. At all hours of the day and night, mariachi bands can be found playing or soliciting gigs from visitors to the Plaza, or on the main avenue trying to get picked up and taken to house parties to play. A must see if you are in the city centre.

Mexico City / Other

Entering Santa Fe, Mexico City. Santa Fe is one of Mexico City's major business districts, located in the west part of the city, consisting of countless high-rise buildings that tower over Latin America's largest shopping mall. Built over existing landfills, several layers of sand was poured over millions of tons of garbage before constructions began. Many original residents of the outlying suburbs were evicted and forced to the outskirts seen here.

Mexico City / Event

Passion of Christ in Iztapalapa. Iztapalapa, is the most populous of Mexico City's 16 boroughs, an urban sprawl on the eastern edge of Mexico City, home to nearly two million people and one of the city's lowest-income areas. Every year a huge numbers of additional visitors, an estimated 2-4 million spectators gather to watch the annual Passion of the Christ procession. The area has been plagued by high crime rates and instances of domestic violence for years therefore, the prestige and scale of the Passion procession are a much-needed source of honour for a community that is so often portrayed negatively in the news.

Mexico City / Transport

If you are visiting Mexico City you must use the metro to get a true insight into daily life in the capital city, but be prepared as it is hectic as! Sometimes feels like the entire Mexico City population is in your carriage during rush hour. Used by around 4.4 million passengers on an average weekday, it has 195 stations and more than 226km of track on 12 lines. Trains arrive every two to three minutes during rush hours. At M$5 a ride, it’s one of the world’s cheapest subways and will get you across the entire city. Best option for people watching and striking up conversation with people you may not otherwise talk to.

London / Photographer

Renate Ariadne is a Dutch fashion photographer with an autonomous approach. Highly inspired by Magical Realism, she strives to create images that read in a way similar to our dreams. After finishing her Bachelor in Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2016 she moved to London, where she is currently based. Photo credit: Laila Mubarak

London / Photographer

Craig is a Scottish portrait and documentary photographer based in London, UK.

Cologne / Photographer

Viktor Hübner (*1988, Germany) received a master of fine arts in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019. He won several grants and honors, including the Rosanne Somerson Scholarship, a RISD Fellowship and a Fulbright scholar. Hübner’s artistic practice unites a natural curiosity for other human beings and their fate. Wherever he goes, he often ends up in interesting or weird situations with people. These experiences are spurred when he starts to actively observing them and building up relationships. For his project 'Distanz', he hitchhiked from Jordan, through Israel, back to Germany traversing nine countries in only 82 days. Using a minimal amount of otherwise distracting gear and the goal to be a participant-observer to whatever situation he encountered. 'Das Leben ist für uns.', is based on a visit to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Northern Iraq and the war against ISIS in 2016. The body of work gives a temporary glimpse of the facets of the PKK, their ideology, aims, and influence. It includes extensive audio material and transcribed text to give an insight into the ideology of the party. His ongoing project 'The Americans I Met' is a photographic and oral history project that collects portraits of, and conversations with, people that Hübner encountered during a series of hitchhiking trips across the United States. His journey represents an exploration of what it means to be American at this moment, and of the issues that affect Americans, both personally and politically. Hübner’s motivation as a witness is simple: He believe in the importance of history. As a young boy, he was fascinated by the history of mankind and dreamt of becoming an Archeologist. This dream ended when he understood that he is simply not the person who sits for hours in a hole brushing away layer by layer of dust. Instead of recovering artifacts from dust, he records small layers of contemporary history through his words and lens.

Cape Town / Photographer

David Chancellor, born 1961, London England, works and lives in South Africa. His work, for which he travels extensively, can be best described as documentary reportage. His series Hunters, which will be released as a monograph in 2011, explores the relationship between man and animal.

Paris / Artist

Artist and Photographer

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