Mexico exists across borders. In popular Western culture is it always an Other – over there, over the wall, outside regulated social conventions. In San Diego: work and reward. In Tijuana: licentiousness and ruin. Prescription drugs loom large in this picture, but what is Mexico, really – this idea of Mexico – but a drug itself? The fortunate wallow in their fortune by denigrating a wicked, undeserving neighbour. This is not an American illusion. We are all party to this imaginary Mexico.

 

These photographs take a tentative step in another direction. Shot around the country Рdesert ghost town, urban metropolis, the border, Caribbean tourist utopia Рthey aim to refigure an increasingly black and white national portrait by etching in a little of the grey. Or, more appropriately, the colour. No pi̱atas, no fetishised poverty, and by no means an exhaustive project, Lance sees this as an opportunity to correct a myopic view of a distant friend.