San Sebastián Xoco · Mexico City
The Town that refuses to die
A collaborative photobook in process
Encerrado por la Ciudad de México moderna, Xoco es un pueblo originario con más de 500 años de historia que resiste el despojo, la gentrificación y el borrado. Sus habitantes están construyendo, con sus imágenes, el archivo que nadie más hará por ellos.
Un archivo vivo, construido por la comunidad
Through five collaborative photography workshops grounded in Participatory Action Research, the residents themselves are building the photobook. They photograph, select, write, edit. The result is an archive that belongs to the community: a first-person tribute to the resistance and culture of Xoco.
The struggle has been largely led by the elder women of the original families. Their presence, their memory, and their refusal to surrender are the moral core of the project.
Workshop 1 · Photo-walk for memory
The community walked the transformed streets of Xoco with cameras to photograph what no longer exists. To photograph absence, transformation and dispossesion.
— Paulo Freire
"Hope is needed. But to hope as a verb, as action, not hope in waiting.
To hope in action is to get up, to pursue something, to build, hope in action is to never desist"
Workshop 2 · Photographic intervention
We printed the archival photos of the community and the images I’ve made through out these 4 years and, with transparency paper, we asked the community to write what they want the world to know about Xoco.
We printed the archival photos of the community and the images I’ve made through out these 4 years and, with transparency paper, we asked the community to write what they want the world to know about Xoco.
Workshop 3 · Collaborative portraits and map intervention
We invited the community to be photographed. They decided how they wanted to be portrayed: What clothes did they want to wear? What gesture to have? Sitting or standing up?
We invited the community to be photographed. They decided how they wanted to be portrayed: What clothes did they want to wear? What gesture to have? Sitting or standing up?
They drew two maps
The map of life in the past
And the map of daily life in the present.
The map of life in the past
And the map of daily life in the present.
Upcoming
Workshop 4— Collective editing
The community selects, sequences, and decides the photobook narrative.
May 2026
Workshop 5 — Community validation
The community sees the books draft. Final adjustments.
Official Presentation: June
Community exhibition in a public wall. Book presentation.
More about MayoloI'm a visual journalist and sociologist from Mexico City. I've always lived very close to Xoco. I used to pass through the neighborhood on my way to the movies.
When I was starting out in photojournalism, I came across a tweet from the Citizens' Assembly, reached out to them, and met the group. That first day, I realized the situation was so complex that it would be impossible to document it with photographs alone. I kept following the life and struggle of Xoco, their protests and cultural celebrations, interviewing people and getting to know the community more deeply. During that time, I went to ICP to study the Visual Journalism and Documentary Practices program, which opened my mind to explore new ways of telling stories and understanding the social world visually. When I returned to Mexico, the Assembly asked me to keep working and find a way to give form to all the photographs I had taken. Together, we came up with a photobook and a street exhibition on the neighborhood's most important street.
Every time I explain this project to people who work closely with communities, they're surprised that people keep coming back to so many workshops to continue building the book. I don't have the words to describe how fortunate, privileged, and deeply grateful I feel to be collaborating with this community in this way. It moves me and reminds me, at every turn, of the immense responsibility I carry in leading this project. There is nothing left to do but keep working and listening to the community at every moment — just as they have done, giving their hearts for the pueblo of Xoco.
Kindly,
Mayolo