Mercado Sonora by Hara Ghan

El Mercado Sonora, an underground market in Ciudad de México dedicated to merchandise for santería, yoruba and adjacent rites, stands for me as a perfect metaphor for the ungraspable essence of this city. A vibrant place in contact with both the spiritual and the extremely carnal; where tradition is venerated as it is challenged and reinterpreted by the newer generations; a place built by people aware of their mortality and struggle as they lovingly embrace the vitality in each other.

These images were taken during my 3 month stay working in Mexico´s capital, as I was inmersed in a spiral of mysticism and tradition in the company of the local club kids. As the city battled problems with safety and a general sense of slight unrest, it remained constantly in motion in a process in which its 9 million inhabitants questioned and reinvented their notions of collective and individual identity through a contraposition of traditional values and avant-garde ideas.