Through Pedro Meyer’s eyes, over fifty years ago, Colonia Ajusco was revealed as a community in the making, with faces, gestures, and moments that shaped a shared life emerging in southern Mexico City.

Meyer’s camera was not a distant instrument, but a tool of closeness. His relationship with the residents of Ajusco allowed him to portray not only market scenes, gatherings, or celebrations, but also the intimacy of a community that recognized itself in each image.

The photographs brought together in this exhibition invite visitors to step into that experience: to look and to feel, for an instant, the lives of those who forged paths through the lava, built homes, and wove everyday bonds. These images offer a sensitive approach to what it means to be a settler: to build a place of one’s own and, in doing so, a collective identity.

In every photograph, the Ajusco community is present; and as they move through the exhibition, each visitor becomes part of that dialogue between memory, gaze, and shared life. The residents of Ajusco, though limited in material resources, showed an extraordinary ability to overcome adversity. We can all learn from them.