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.

Budapest / Art Director

Art Director & Fine Art Photographer from Budapest, Hungary

Los Angeles / Film Director

Micaela McLucas is a filmmaker and artist based between Los Angeles, Paris and London. She studied at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and completed her MFA in Contemporary Photography at Central Saint Martins in London. Raised between Argentina and LA, always on an airplane, always out of context. Three passports, four languages, learned every life lesson by getting kicked in the teeth, which is why her work hits the way it does. Her influences range from trash TV to French philosophy and cinema has always been the core obsession. Her work moves between fashion, theory and lived experience in ways that feel both precise and unruly. The world she builds is psychedelic, intimate and unapologetically feminine. She mines her own life for material and uses it to collapse fantasy and confession. Everything is neon soaked, surreal and intrusive, not to escape reality but to pierce it. She's currently writing and developing her first feature film while continuing her studio practice.

Istanbul / Photographer

Stephanie is a photography and video artist originally from Michigan. After receiving her MFA degree from Purdue University, she moved to Istanbul, Turkey, and currently teaches art courses there. She loves anything and everything about pinhole photography and focuses on camera building techniques. Her current photographic series explores, in both pinhole and digital photography, the degradation of a small town.

Toronto / Photographer

Cristian's work is a dialogue between photography, graphic design, and printed matter. Born in Santiago in 1976, based in Toronto, Canada. His latest limited edition, self-published book "Other Voices" was recently selected to be exhibited at the Benaki Museum, in Greece, as part of the Athens Photo Festival 2019. His first book “A Way to Disconnect and Connect” was published by Daga Editions in 2017. Cristian's work has been shown in exhibitions and publications internationally. He was recently invited to direct a PhotoBook workshop at VU Photo, in Québec City (Canada), and write an essay about Sergio Larrain’s photographic work for the book 100x100 curated by Patricio Pozo (Chile). Currently, Cristian splits his time working independently on personal art projects, graphic design, and photographic assignments. Since 2016, he has collaborated as Art Director for the architecture publication Azure Magazine and teaches in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Toronto.

Brunswick / Photographer

Lilli Waters was born in 1983 in Armidale, NSW. Fascinated with a world of fantasy rich with ethereal themes, Water's work is a mix of both digital and analogue photography using heavy layering processes to create fantastical and somewhat unsettling moods. In her portraits she exposes an enigmatic sense of her past and surrounding environment, mixing brutal realism and chaotic settings which resists the serene and awkward beauty of her subjects. Waters has held several solo exhibitions, including the World Trade Centre in Melbourne of survivors from the Black Saturday bush fires, also a selection of works for a group exhibition at Brick Lane gallery in London towards the end of this year. Some of her career highlights include being a Finalist in the Head On Portrait Prize 2013, Highly Commended in the Moran Prize in 2012 and Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards in 2012 & 2013. Waters dedicated her 'She Raw' photographic project to preventing violence against women, in launching the She Raw book she raised over $1000 for the White Ribbon Foundation in 2012. Waters is currently living and working in Brunswick, Melbourne.

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