Ojalá by Philip Zimmermann; León de la RosaCall Number: Artists' Books N7433.4.Z566 O5 2012
Publication Date: Spaceheater Editions, 2012
Edition of 150.5.25 x 8.25"; 148 pages. Perfect bound with English and Spanish text. Signed and numbered by Zimmermann. A book about the terrors of living on the Northern border of Mexico in this time of the Narco Wars, the bloody drug was that rage inside Mexico. Phil Zimmermann, blog: "The book is about the bloody drug wars that rage inside the Mexican borders, and what it is like to live in Ciudad Juárez, where Leon lives with his wife Gabriela and where both teach at the University in Juárez. The text is in Spanglish. I made the most of the photographs and added a few police photographs that were in the public domain. The word ojalá derived from the Arabic inshallah, meaning 'I wish it were so' and describes the wishful thinking that Mexico can someday return to the days before the brutality and violence of the narco-cartels…Title page shows the border fence along the Rio Grande in El Paso, which looks across to some of the Colonias. ... I have added large halftone dots to the photos to give the images the gritty feel that they have been torn out of the pages of newspapers."