In We Are Things (2020), Cartagena continues his exploration of found imagery and collage, turning his attention to the construction of identity in the age of relentless self-documentation. This series is composed of unique collages made from discarded black-and-white photographs, and its title hints at a provocative thesis: that in our quest to define ourselves through images, we risk turning ourselves into objects – into “things.” Conceptually, We Are Things offers a pointed critique of “our incessant need to identify and confirm ourselves by means of the photographic image”. Cartagena has observed how photography’s very reproducibility fuels an obsessive search for the “perfect” self-image – a phenomenon amplified by social media and by official systems of identification that reduce personhood to a photograph . In this series, he literalizes that idea by repurposing images that have been physically thrown away by their owners. These source photographs – possibly old portrait prints, ID photos, snapshots from Mexican archives – once served to affirm someone’s identity at a moment in time. By rescuing and reassembling them, Cartagena creates what he calls “an alternate imaginary of the construction of the modern human”. In practice, this means that each collage in We Are Things is a fragmented portrait of sorts, pieced together from many lives. Faces, bodies, and environments collide in uncanny juxtapositions; a single figure might be composed of multiple people’s features, or a person might be set within a disjointed space compiled from several photographs. The collages invite viewers to decipher them, but full recognition is deliberately thwarted – much as the pursuit of an ideal self-image is ultimately unfulfilling. By confronting us with spliced and rearranged humans, Cartagena exposes “the perversity of the search of ‘being’ through personal image and the spaces we inhabit”. We see how identity can be manufactured and deconstructed, how the personal and the vernacular can be co-opted into a new, unsettling visual language.

Aesthetically, We Are Things is both vintage and avant-garde. Cartagena works with silver gelatin prints and uses analog collage techniques (cutting with scissors or knives, layering pieces by hand), which gives the pieces a tactile, handcrafted feel. The black-and-white tonal range harks back to mid-20th-century photography, imbuing the collages with a sense of archival memory. Within these frames, however, the traditional notions of portraiture and space are subverted. One collage might show a man’s silhouette filled in with fragments of architectural photographs, suggesting a human identity literally constituted by material possessions or surroundings. Another might replace a subject’s face with an object – a clock, a piece of machinery – punning on the idea of people becoming things. Repetition and typological strategies emerge as well: Cartagena often produces dozens of works in a series (the individual pieces here are titled We Are Things #1, #2, up to #100 and beyond), implying a catalog of modern identity tropes. This approach recalls the seriality of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s typologies, but applied to the collage of human identity – each piece a variation on the theme of self-construction. Despite the jarring combinations, there is an underlying coherence and empathy in Cartagena’s method. The careful composition of each collage, balancing visual elements, suggests that even in our disjointed self-presentations there is a pattern and purpose. Meanwhile, the fact that these source photographs were “expired” or abandoned adds a melancholic undercurrent: We Are Things is also about loss and the passage of personal histories. The images we create to define ourselves eventually outlive their purpose, becoming orphaned artifacts. Cartagena’s art gives these artifacts new life, inviting reflection on what they once meant and what they mean now in altered form.

Positioned within Cartagena’s body of work, We Are Things is a natural extension of the Photographic Structures project, yet it sharpens the focus onto the theme of self-image. If Photographic Structures deconstructed found photos to question the medium, We Are Things reconstructs them to question the modern self. This series also resonates with broader societal conversations in Mexico and beyond: in a world saturated with selfies and surveillance, how do images empower or imprison our sense of identity? Cartagena’s collages suggest that the line between empowerment and objectification is perilously thin. The series was first presented in 2020 and quickly garnered attention in contemporary art circles. It had a dedicated showing at the Salón ACME art fair in Mexico City (2020) , where its cutting-edge commentary on identity in Latin America was met with intrigue. Works from We Are Things have since been exhibited and placed through galleries in Mexico and internationally (with representation by Patricia Conde Gallery, Catherine Edelman Gallery, and others ). Notably, one of Cartagena’s We Are Things collages was featured in the Paris Photo New York 2020 online exhibition, singled out by critics as a “must-see” image that year . Such recognition speaks to the series’ compelling blend of visual allure and critical depth. In a museum or publication context, We Are Things reads as a scholarly yet accessible meditation on image culture. Its title encapsulates the sobering conclusion at which the work arrives: in our contemporary milieu, we are not only the creators and subjects of photographs – we have, in many ways, become the very photographs themselves. Cartagena’s series stands as a reflective mirror, one assembled from the broken pieces of others’ mirrors, urging us to reconsider how we see ourselves in the endless hall of images.