The New Cubans Project: One Year In
A sneak peek into the making of my next book, film and exhibition.
Visiting Cuba at a pivotal, emotional moment.
The photographer photographed with Cuban actress Yessica Perryman, starring in Netflix’s Narcos Mexico
Today marks the beginning of my new project in Cuba exactly one year ago. After countless trips to Havana, 52 nights shooting, and meeting hundreds of young Cubans, I am not ready yet to show more than a preview of my work but I wish to share my experience on the island.
My very first visit to Cuba dates back to the 90s. Like many photographers before me, the island’s people and unique aesthetic blew my mind. I participated in photography workshops and a life-long love affair with the Cuban people was fostered. Over the years, I made numerous photographs but I kept them to myself as I never felt that they added anything new to the fantastic Cuban work produced by great masters of the past decades.
But, almost 20 years after my first visit, a new reality emerged and things finally clicked for me. Despite the communist regime, a recent unforeseen intersection of global and local circumstances has reinvigorated Cuba’s creative and alternative subcultures like never before. For viewers accustomed to Cuba’s cliché depiction as just cigars, vintage cars, all-inclusive resorts, and Cold War echoes, The Other Cuba photo essay promises an inspiring wake-up slap.
“To bear witness to this unique moment, I embedded myself deep in the Cuban counter-culture and collaborated with my subjects to imagine how we would convey their alternative lifestyles and cultural ethos.”
Since migration from Cuba is currently at an all-time high with more than 200,000 migrants in the past 12 months, many of my subjects have left the country or are about to do so. The unprecedented scale of this migration is driven by younger generations that feel their future is elsewhere due to the countless day-to-day hardships experienced in the country. Cubans also now have wide access to the Internet and it drives their quest to access the larger opportunities the rest of the world has to offer.
I can only show a few images from this ongoing project since it is scheduled for 2024. But I am delighted to share some behind-the-scenes images of the wonderful people and places that have been fortunate enough to discover during the first year of this ambitious project.
MEET MY COLLABORATORS DEVON, OSMEL,
OLIVIER, PAUL & FRIENDS
A SMALL PREVIEW OF THE WORK
This project will include almost 100 images for the book, a selection of about 20 images for the exhibitions and a 30-minute documentary that I am co-directing with the über-talented film upstart director Olivier Côté.
