Under the slogan “Solamente ten fe!” (Just have faith!), a collective of around 200 women volunteers from the state of Veracruz (El Colectivo Solecito de Veracruz) is working to excavate the largest recent mass grave in Latin America. The group is searching for missing relatives who are victims of the Mexican drug war and systemic violence in the state of Veracruz. Photographer Adél Koleszár worked with the collective for more than a year between 2017 and 2018, photographing them and their surroundings, as well as conducting interviews and making audio recordings. The recordings will be presented in the Liget Gallery in the form of an ever-changing interactive installation with the collaboration of multidisciplinary media and sound artist Esteban de la Torre.
Because of its ports and extensive highway network, the state of Veracruz is an important strategic location for drug cartels. Thanks to the collusion of Mexican authorities with criminal groups, disappearances, or so-called “social cleansing”, are a regular occurrence. Under the guise of official security procedures, young people, mainly belonging to criminal groups, are executed or disappeared by warring cartels. The activities of the women’s collective draw attention to the violence in the area, which is linked to corruption and other abuses of power, thereby exposing the situation. Although search groups generally operate independently of the government, relying on volunteers’ free time, El Colectivo members independently fund the full-time excavation of the Colinas de Santa Fe mass grave: by selling food and second-hand clothes, they are able to raise the funds to help the women and mothers volunteers give up their own jobs and dedicate themselves to the search for eight-hour shifts during the week. Through the collective’s efforts, volunteers give a voice to victims of systemic violence and their relatives and demand justice for those responsible.
In contrast to the clickbait content fetishising violence that circulates in mainstream media, Koleszár’s photographs focus on the wounded landscape, the surrounding villages and the stories of volunteers who are plagued by systemic neglect and marginalisation by the authorities. The exhibition, in collaboration with Esteban de la Torre, who has known the Veracruz area since childhood, offers a more nuanced, empathetic and multisensorial presentation of the struggles of El Colectivo.