'Between 1983 and 1987 along the California/Mexico border, Ken Light took his Hasselblad camera and flash and rode along with US Border Patrol agents in the middle of the night as they combed the Otay Mesa looking for “illegal aliens”. He was there when they were apprehended – captured by authorities as well as the photographer’s flash. The black and white images are stark, impromptu mug shots in the desert, taken at a moment of extreme vulnerability, when hope gave way to despair, migrants caught in a cruel game of hide and seek.'
A staggering and often heartbreaking photobook that charts journeys from over thirty-five years ago, that are replicated to this day with the full spectrum of human emotion that Light captures. A historical project that is as much contemporary reportage, it also records a uniquely American matrix of landscape, infrastructure and migration. Photographs are accompanied by a first-hand memoir of the night border crossing by José Ángel Navejas, presented in both English and Spanish.
Hardcover, 136 pages, printed on beautiful black and white paper stock with 66 plates, 29 x 34cm, 2020
