Proyecto Zapato-The Shoeproject in Spanish

The day after my presentation in Oaxaca I felt that it was time to focus on something else rather than dreams. However my desire to interview strangers was only growing stronger, so the very same day I decided to make my first interviews for Proyecto Zapato, a documentary project with shoe polishers in Mexico.

This is how I made these interviews:

1. I walk up to one of the many shoe polisher that you can see around the main square in almost every Mexican city.

2. I ask how much it costs to have my shoes polished.

3. They usually tell me it is about 10 pesos.

4. I say: Fine, the price sounds reasonable.

5. But since I always wear sandals I point at my sandals saying that I don´t really need to have them polished but that I will give him 10 pesos anyway if he could help me with something...

6. The man asks what.

7. I tell him that I am collecting stories about shoes and I ask him if he would like to participate with a story. He wouldn´t have to polish my shoes and he would get 10 pesos in return.

8. If he says yes I ask him if I can record him.

9. I turn on my camera and start filming:



This man is one of the first shoe polishers that I interviewed. He has worked for 14 years as a shoe polisher in Oaxaca, Mexico.

During these years he has seen all kinds of shoes he told me. I asked him if he had noticed anything in particular regarding shoes and he told me that these days many people wear shoes that are a little bit pointy and that they often are pointing upwards, a little bit like an Arab shoe. I asked if it was just certain people wearing them but he said that almost everybody wears these now and that it is a part of the fashion these days.

Since an Arab shoe is pointing slightly upwards (like he tries to illustrate to me with his hands) I asked him what a typical Mexican shoe would look like. He said they are just normal shoes, like the ones he is wearing himself, or sandals.

He also told me that his last customer was wearing a pair that were in very bad shape so he had to work very hard with them. But that is quite rare he said, a lot of people wear tennis shoes these days and they never come to polish them. I guess I never saw tennis shoes as a threat to an occupation before.

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