In 1995, while walking through the outskirts of Tijuana, just south of Mexico’s border with California, Magnum photographer Alex Webb came upon a box of colourful women’s shoes on a desolate embankment. “They seemed so out of place,” he recalls. “I looked around for an explanation. Was there a market here earlier and these shoes left behind? Had women exchanged these high heels for more comfortable footwear, before heading to work in a nearby maquiladora? Or had the shoe vendor simply left during the hottest time of the day? In my bad Spanish, I asked a passerby if he knew. The old man just shrugged.”
Eye-catching incongruities such as this were what drew Webb, who was born in San Francisco and raised in New England, to start documenting life in Mexico in the mid-70s, a move that compelled him to switch from black-and-white photography to a suitably vibrant use of colour.
The US-Mexico border was a particular source of fascination. “It’s where the two cultures come together – and the handshake is rough,” he says, quoting the Arizona poet Alberto Ríos. “It seemed to me as if this border region – 2,000 miles long, 10 miles wide – was a kind of third country between the US and Mexico.”
After some 30 visits to this “third country”, Webb finally published his work in a book called Crossings in 2003 (the image of the shoes is now available from Magnum as part of its Square Print Sale, with work by more than 100 leading photographers on the theme of crossings). “Looking back,” he says, “I realise that Crossings reflects the last days of a more porous border between the US and Mexico. In 1995, when I took this photograph, many migrants managed to cross illegally through border cities such as Tijuana.”
Today, 12 pairs of abandoned shoes near the border might prompt a very different interpretation. “With increased security,” says Webb, “migrants often opt to take the dangerous path through the deserts, facing extreme heat in the summer and intense cold in the winter – and many have died trying.”
Crossings, Magnum’s Square Print Sale in partnership with Aperture, runs from 9am EST Monday 29 October until 12 midnight EST Friday 2 November. Signed or estate-stamped, museum-quality, 6x6-inch prints from more than 100 artists will be available for $100, for five days only, from shop.magnumphotos.com
