Miami, December 4 (EFE) - The Cuba of the "Special Period" was captured through the lens of American photographer Tria Giovan, and is now featured in the book "The Cuba Archive."
For the artist based in New York, this 167-page landscape-format book in full color, which she presented in Miami last weekend, represents "historical documentation" of "one of the most difficult moments in Cuba," she said in an interview with Efe.
"The Cuba Archive" is the result of six years of work. It brings together images from the twelve trips made to Cuba between 1990 and 1996, during which the photographer visited places that had never before been photographed by a foreigner due to their lack of apparent tourist appeal.
"It also captures intimate and informal moments," Giovan said, very excited to present her work in Miami, the city outside of Cuba with the largest Cuban population.
"I know that in those years it was very difficult for an American to travel to Cuba, which is why it was fortunate that I was allowed to witness the moment of the country's economic collapse," he stated.
"I obtained research visas, which I didn't specify at the time what type of research I was going to conduct," states Giovan, who grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands and has always had the desire to visit the "socialist" Caribbean context.
A consenting gaze towards the camera, yet the expression remains unchanged from the moment she requests permission until she presses the shutter, conveys a feeling of solitude and innocence that the author consciously explored in these pages.
"Everyone was waiting in lines for nothing. The buses were packed with people. It was easier for me to get around because I had dollars," says Giovan, who visited countless towns and provinces in rural Cuba with a friend, also a photographer, in a rental car that they drove themselves.
"They would hitchhike. We played taxi drivers countless times because we were embarrassed by the advantages we had," he recalls.
The book, published by the Italian publisher Damiani, captures everything from the desolation of a landscape to folk dances and Sunday dresses, all of which did not escape the "bold" eye of this professional photographer.
Giovan captured what are likely the last propaganda billboards used, and still used, by the communist government to glorify its social and political system, leaving the author with a subtle irony in images such as one that features the caption: "To the revolution and socialism, we owe today everything that we are."
A dilapidated, faded, and lonely Cuba is what Giovan leaves behind, not without first providing a written dedication on the first page: "For the future of Cuba."
The author likes to think that many of the girls who appear with their families or alone in the book "must be women today, and we don't know if they are still there."
"I scanned everything. The negatives had deteriorated, and I had to review them to preserve them. That's why it's called 'Archive.' Originally, I found about 25,000 frames. Then I refined that and ended up with 1,000 scanned images, and later 600."
"In the end, I was left with 200 to finish at 125, which is what the book has," Giovan indicates.
The "rescue" work was carried out twenty years later and, as he recalls, was prompted by a news story he saw about Cuba on television.
"I remember that it all began on a very cold night in New York. I looked at the boxes in my house labeled 'Cuba 90s' and started reviewing the negatives. I found things I had never seen before. My perspective had matured, and I began to notice photographs I had never looked at."
The author, currently showcasing her work in the group photography exhibition "Cuba Is" at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, California, would love for her book to be presented in Cuba.
"Now I see it as possible. I would like that. I know that regarding Cuba, there are people with very strong feelings, and I can understand them. I hope this does not upset the Cuban government because there are no ill intentions in this project," Giovan assures.
The artist presented her "refined" archive this Sunday at the Books & Books bookstore in Coral Gables, a city adjacent to Miami, where she signed copies and revealed details, such as her intentional use of color film to capture the "faded" look of the facades and signs.
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