During the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), Mexico experienced an unprecedented escalation in instability, violence, and murder. At least sixty thousand people were killed and tens of thousands more ‘disappeared’ – ‘desaparecidos’ – in the period between 2006 and 2012, if not double. This is in addition to countless more who were subjected to kidnappings and sexual violence. An increase in policing initiated by Calderón – arguably to distract from the suspicious circumstances of his election – created the conditions for such abuses to occur and proliferate.

As such, this presidency boasts a legacy of exponentially increasing brutality. In her book México en llamas: el legado de Calderón (2012) / Mexico in Flames: Calderón's Legacy, renowned Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández outlines this so-called legacy of violence that characterised the panista's presidency. Hernández understands legacy as how Calderón himself will be remembered as well as the lasting impact of his administration on life and security in Mexico (9). Over the course of these six years and reflected in the works analysed in this book, this legacy is understood as the untenable escalation of violence resulting in countless deaths and disappeared; increased violence against journalists; and the fall of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) / National Action Party to the further rise of drug-trafficking organisations. This legacy inescapably impacts visual culture as well, via its intersection with politics and security.

When it comes to representations of graphic violence, Mexico has a well-explored visual history (Hallin, 2009; Piccato, 2014; Silva Londoño, 2019, to name a few) and during Calderón's sexenio (the six-year presidential term), visual media practitioners continued to capture and thematise instances of brutality. In fact, the long-term detrimental impact of this presidency continues to form the subject of emerging visual media. In fiction cinema, films such as Fernando Frías de la Parra's Ariel-winning and Oscar-shortlisted film Ya no estoy aquí (2019) / I’m No Longer Here and Fernanda Valadez's Sundance winner Sin señas particulares (2020) / Identifying Features offer examples of this as linked to forced migration which increased in tandem with the violence. In photojournalism the evidence of legacy is pervasive – see for example the recent work of Rashide Frías, Daniel Becerril, Victor Medina and Alejandro Saldivar as well as work from foreign journalists such as Alejandro Cegarra and Janet Jarmen among many others.