Cuba Photography Missions: Where Are You From?

- Like photography itself, Cuba Photography Missions is slippery, complex and multi-layered. It is self-defined as a project in documentary photography; it is a collaborative international exchange among institutions and artists; it is an educational initiative; it has resulted in art

In 2019, Cuba celebrated the 60th anniversary of the revolution. In 1959, Fidel Castro and Ch Guevarra ousted dictator Batista and the country entered a utopian future. But Soviet communism and the American embargo forced Cuba to survive because the country remained fundamentally committed to the socialist values of the revolution. Against this background, an extensive photography project was set up with four Cuban and four European participants. Taking the current reality of the island as a starting point, they each developed a project, which together provide a nuanced picture of the complex country. The eight projects pit the photographic interpretations of the local artists against those of the Europeans. The project starts from 'heritage' in the broadest sense of the word and focuses on the past, present and future of Cuba. Cuba Photography Missions proposes an approach to reality in the country from the personal poetics of our artists and their European counterparts, assuming Cuban contemporaneity as a topic of reflection, among universal aspects that specify the thematic and formal coherence of the exhibition. Participating photographers: Ossain Raggi Gonzalez, Bert Danckaert, Linet Sanchez, Charlotte Lybeer, Liudmila & Nelson, Ulla Deventer, Ricardo Elias and Simon Roberts. Text English and Spanish.