ABSTRACT
Following the Mexican Revolution, native and immigrant photographers documented the socialist plight, visualised a new Mexican identity, or conveyed their personal experiences, establishing the country as a key site for the progression of Modernist photography. The years of social and political upheaval following the Mexican Revolution ignited a cultural renaissance. As the government commissioned Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, among others, to paint political murals to educate the masses, other artists and writers harnessed their medium to support the socialist cause and assert a new, uniquely Mexican, identity. The fervour of this moment attracted many creatives and intellectuals from abroad, among them photographers Tina Modotti and Edward Weston, who settled there in 1923. Modotti used her camera to further the socialist cause, documenting proletariat demonstrations and indigenous communities and creating still lifes such as Bandolier, Sickle, Corn that symbolised the life of Mexican workers, some of which were published in communist journals including El Machete.
