What is Present, What is Visible: the Photo-Portraits of the 43 ‘Disappeared’ Students of Ayotzinapa as Positive Social Agency

Abstract

Through a reflection on the nature of photography (its referential and political ontology) this article discusses the effective possibility of a political use of photography in a contemporary post-industrial culture marked by the dialectics of hypo-and hypervisibility. Considering the case of photographs of a group of people whose disappearance was politically motivated (the 'Ayotzinapa 43'), this essay proposes the spectral ambiguity of images as one possible positive-political element of interrogation and restoration of the social.

The ultimate intimacy

“…The portraits of the 43 were reproduced and circulated massively in the public sphere. In the process, as argued by González‐Flores (2018, 501–2), visibility and erasure became political acts. Paradoxically, the image of Mondragón's flayed face, also deployed in protest, became a blank slate to denounce violence.…”

Fondos de Identidad y Justicia Social a través de la Fotovoz “Ayotzinapa: Lugar de Tortugas”

“…etiqueta como justicia semiótica. Al respecto, la fotografía resulta un medio testimonial por excelencia, un análogo de la realidad en cuanto permite construir el rastro físico de una persona y da cuenta de la subjetividad ligada a la constitución social del grupo al que se pertenece; por ejemplo, jóvenes indígenas y mestizos, casi adolescentes, de extracción humilde, todos ellos varones, hijos de campesinos, disidentes políticos (González- Flores, 2018). La autora considera que este tipo de manifestación fotográfi ca y su recreación constituye un acto político en sí mismo (Figura 2).…”