Written by: Vanessa Martinez/Staff Writer
Thais Hernandez said she grew up climbing trees and playing with rocks in Havana, Cuba.
“There was no luxury of sitting on a computer for seven hours or watching TV,” said Hernandez, a junior sculpting and painting double major.
Cynthia Alonso, a photographer and photo editor, exhibits artists, news events and the daily lives of people in Cuba through her book, “Passage to Cuba: An Up-Close Look at the World’s Most Colorful Culture.” Her book is made up of photographs of contemporary Cuba.
Jorge Duany, director at the University’s Cuban Research Institute, said Alonso’s shows images that are often neglected by foreigners.
“What interests me as an anthropologist are the photographs she documents that are not regularly seen in travel brochures: regular people that are not necessarily posing for the tourist gaze,” said Duany.
For more than 20 years, Alonso’s works have been published by Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Businessweek and TIME. Her works have also been presented in Canada and Latin America.
Alonso’s photographs show a contrast between the folkloric aspect to the country and the foreigner’s perspective of the less luxurious parts of Cuba. She combines the foreigner’s perspective of Cuba into an adaptation of less commonly known places over a passage of time.
Places include the streets of Cuba with automobiles from the 1950s and she shows the contrasts between patina homes; peeling stucco apartments and the Capitol Building, Havana Cathedral and Hotel Nacional. Alonso also highlights the different use of color palettes in Cuba, like salmon pink, sky blue, apricot and aqua green.
The rise of self-employment is also highlighted in the book. Alonso shows the number of vendors ranging from selling t-shirts to artwork. Hernandez said she remembers the struggle of living in Cuba with large families.
“A family of six struggles with what an entire household can eat for the rest of the week,” said Hernandez.
“We were given a libreta, which rations the limitation of needs for survival.” Libreta translates to a notebook.
Alonso also incorporates to her work historical references since she started her project in 1992. One of her images, for example, shows supporters for Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old boy who brought international attention.
Gonzalez was found clinging to an inner tube off Florida in 1999 after his mother and others drowned trying to reach the United States. He was taken to live with his relatives in Miami, but his father, still in Cuba, demanded his return.
Past Cuban president, Fidel Castro, led marches calling for Gonzalez to be sent back to Cuba until American courts sided with his father. The book also serves as a visual connection for Cuban immigrants who have fled to Miami over the decades.
Some images include pictorials of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Guevara was a tactician of guerrilla warfare and a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution between 1956 and 1959.
The book presentation is hosted by the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and it will take place Saturday, Nov. 28 at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
vanessa.martinez@fiusm.com
Image by halbag, courtesy of Creative Commons
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