Meet the explorers of Mexico’s abandoned railways

After Mexico’s rail network was privatized in the mid-’90s, the government ended passenger service and abandoned many of the lines, leaving some communities stranded and disconnected. Artists Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene decided to explore the aftermath of that decision, and between 2006 and 2011 traveled across the abandoned lines, picking up scraps, talking to locals, and documenting what they found. Some of findings are being presented in London beginning tomorrow and continuing intermittently through late July at the Furtherfield Gallery.

A short video on Vimeo gives a quick history on how the railways got to their current state and what the artists have been up to. They present the expedition as a mission exploring some new moon, calling their strange, custom exploration vehicle a “space craft” and their findings “lunar samples.” If you can’t make it to the exhibit, there’s still plenty to see and more of the artists’ travels online. At SEFT-1, they’ve cataloged much of their work, sharing maps, interviews, photos, and more.