Edgardo Aragón

Efectos de Familia (Family Effects)

Efectos de Familia (Family Effects) is a series of 13 videos that dramatize an array of abusive events derived from Edgardo Aragón’s family’s history—specifically its involvement with organized crime. Each episode is an action performed by some combination of his two young cousins, nephew, and younger brother. In one, a boy is shot to death inside a pickup truck. In another, two of them endure a brick-carrying competition. In another, a boy digs his grave. The work is about a collective social condition of survival and endurance, and it is inextricable from the broader context of contemporary México, especially its skyrocketing crime rates and the disaster of its national economy. By using reenactment as an artistic medium, Aragón attempts to educate his young family members to avoid criminal entanglements.