The canteen was called La Barca de Oro, like the song, it was about leaving. And now, it has disappeared.
A shoeshine, a passing guitarist, a man with his arms raised at the bar. In El Tercer Mundo, everything happens at once, and no one seems in a hurry.
The jukebox is shaped like a smartphone, but everything else is timeless, teasing, waiting, drinking, laughing.
A blurred exchange, a tender hold, and the space between them. The cantina doesn’t separate stories, it stacks them.
It was late. Their gestures played out in the mirror. The night was coming to an end.
The wall was cracked, the paint peeling. Her screen glowed clean and cold. Two worlds, sharing one table.
Two men sit in silence under the blue neon wash. Outside, a yellow wall glows with the word estacionamiento, a reminder that some places aren’t for moving, but for stopping.
Everyone in the cantina knew Don Mathías. He had lived a story bigger than most and carried it without needing to say much. That night, he sat alone, like he often did, two beers, his hat low, and something heavy in the silence.
Pigeons are a common sight inside La Poblanita, known as Las Madres by the locals. Some say the late Doña Carmen returns here, taking the form of a pigeon, settling beneath the saints and the dim glow of the cantina.
Not the queen, not the ace. Just the two, still waiting to see where it goes.
Gotas de Fuego, set in Oaxacan cantinas, reflects on longing, separation, and fleeting connections. Inspired by a song that uses love as a metaphor for alcoholism, the project also examines the emotional catharsis that men express in these spaces, feelings that are often repressed at home or in public due to macho culture. The cantinas become places where vulnerability flourishes, captured through candid yet composed images that use light, color, and emotion to evoke complexity.
