Things between day 11 and 18 (posted late)
I got a haircut. And not from an old barber in a small and dark barbershop located on a busy street like I was imagining for some reason. I think this vision might have been propagated by images that I had been constantly searching online for before coming. Mostly to get an idea of what tourists were taking pictures of and what tourists were posting. Instead Roberto took me to the salon he goes to. My hair was shampooed and I was given a book of different styles to choose from. This is what I ended up talking about for my oral presentation in Spanish class.
After 18 days I’ve started to get a handle on how my project could be realized. Now that I’ve begun to collect a good group of photos, and hung around some tourists, I took a stab at designing a few days ago. I used something I heard someone say while I was on the red, double-decker HabanaBusTour last week and a photo taken from the balcony attached to my room. Things I was playing with: idea that at least half of the cars here are not of the 1950s American variety; how the tourist might have been expressing her desire to fulfill a preconceived desired experience; the ambiguity of the quote juxtaposed with the photo; idea that since this is view of the city that I see everyday the design does not deny any sort of subjectivity; placing text within the composition rather than superimposed on it to vaguely locate the speaker within everything.
I was talking with Thom Long (my advisor and design professor at Hampshire) before coming and he put out the idea of creating an installation consisting of a square grid of photos. For now, I’m taking this and running with it and including not just photos but other design elements (type, found things, illustrations). Central to my project are the different faces of Havana that are sold, seen, sought out, memorialized, and lived. I think the grid has potential to create some interesting juxtapositions because it allows for each element to interact with four other elements on each side. It also allows for things to be grouped and organized in ways that aren’t exclusive (squares could be part of multiple categories such as, [in the most basic sense] things that are part of a tourist image but things that can be central to people living. Like building ruins in Havana Vieja).
My goal for the final product is to have everything be intentional. Nice-looking things are always nice, but I think I’m here to do more than create nice-looking things. Nice-lookingness will secondarily fall into place after making sure all content (visual or otherwise) means something.
Tomorrow we’re going to the Feria De Libros.
I need a map of the city.
Yesterday I walked down Boulevard de San Rafael in Centro Habana with Dot, Hanna, Kristina, and Becca. I went into a doorway that looked interesting and found a giant indoor flea market. Lots of kitschy tourist trinkets even though the majority of people there looked Cuban. In the very back I came across a couple selling old, old photos. They had two albums full of portraits. He wanted 40 CUC for one and 50 for the other (about 50 and 60 USD). I’ll probably go back soon and try and to talk him down to 25 CUC.
To get a rough idea on money: we get 150 CUC a month from Hampshire; at the Melia Cohiba hotel wifi costs 12 CUC per hour; a bottle of rum costs 3-4 CUC; a bottle of water costs 1 CUC; the fried-egg-topped cheeseburger I got yesterday in Habana Vieja (touristy) at La Cervezería cost 3 CUC; a night at the 50s-era Riviera Hotel costs from 90-200 CUC. One CUC can be exchanged for 25 Moneda Nacional: 10 MN will get you across the city in a peso cab; 10 MN will get you a lunch-sized pizza on the street; 1 MN will get you a thin paper cone of maní, or peanuts.
Posted late because of a bad internet connection on day 18.
