La Frontera: Jared Moossy

From the series 'La Frontera' by Jared Moossy. Copyright 2010

In many ways the new series 'La Frontera' is the most personal work Texan photojournalist Jared Moossy has done to date. A friend whose work I've watched get steadily better and better over the years, Jared is no stranger to intense and volatile global hot spots.

With this new body of work, he documents something a little closer to home: the cheapness of human life in the shadow of a promised land.

It's great to see that he is able to bring all of his knowledge of Latin culture and the region to bear in an amazing set of pictures.


From the series 'La Frontera' by Jared Moossy. Copyright 2010

'La Frontera' is a depiction of chaos rising and it's aftermath in both Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana; two Mexican outposts that are defined by the promise of what lies beyond their borders and the desperation that draws people towards these social fault lines.

As the authorities struggle to control the gang warfare that is turning Mexico into one of the most dangerous places on the planet, Jared also documented the consequences of the drug war on the local population; a people so used to this kind of suffering that they turn to an image of death, even in their prayers.


From the series 'La Frontera' by Jared Moossy. Copyright 2010

Maybe it's a cliche to say it but stereotypes exist because they're true and Moossy's pictures bring to mind a kind of fictionalized, Cormac McCarthy-esque vision of Mexico as a place where bad things happen to people who should have known better in the first place.

Great work.


From the series 'La Frontera' by Jared Moossy. Copyright 2010