Up until day 58
Margaret (Hampshire professor) arrived last Thursday night for a 10 (?) day visit. Between socializing with friends in the other room, she sat in on our Thursday night seminar for a little. She told us that many of us are at the point where we’ve been doing a lot of information gathering and that we should not forget about forming our own ideas. We shouldn’t get stuck in intense academic mode where we’re preoccupied with envisioning the final product figuring out how everything will come together. Instead we should remember to take a step back and do some reflecting to form theses. Here goes (I don’t like getting all academic-languagey, but maybe sometimes it’s most helpful to organize thoughts):
Over the last couple weeks my understanding of what it is like to live here has deepened. This understanding is made possible by the level to which the relationships I have with people here have developed (thanks to the time I’ve spent with people). In the conversations I’ve had with Cubans who play a role in the tourist experience, among other things, I’ve learned how important access to CUC is to living here (Kook. Cuban convertible currency with which you must buy everything except produce, rice, beans, and street food). Though I began to understand this earlier on in the trip, it is only now beginning to sink in fully. Tourists operate in CUC-land. Living with things other than rice, beans and produce means needing access to CUC-land, access to CUC-land means needing access to tourists, and access to tourists means appeasing and attracting tourists. What has become a big question for me is, any sort of cultural or moral sacrifice is made in the attempt to appease and attract tourists. For instance, do people who work with the Office of the Historian (who has been restoring the colonial-era buildings of Old Havana for decades) believe in the Havana that they are recreating? Or, if they had the choice would they use the money to make different improvements? Or in another case, is any sort of moral or cultural sacrifice made by the women in Old Havana who pose for tourists in colorful clothing with baskets of fake flowers and larger-than-life cigars? Do they have any sort of moral problem with the Habanera that they are presenting? How is this complicated by the need for CUC? Or, is there any sort of moral sacrifice made by artists at places like the Feria San José who paint bright pictures of shiny, red, American cars from the 50’s for tourists’ CUC?
At first this question of moral or cultural sacrifice might seem a touch trivial since it appears to only affect the individual—the individual architect, Habanera, or artist feels an internal conflict that affects no one else but themselves when faced with the need for CUC. I argue that the conflict of (mis)representation (I usually think (pare)nthetisized words are created too liberally, but I think it’s appropriate here maybe) is much larger and influences much more than the individual who is implicated in the tourist transaction. The need to misrepresent and/or to appease tourists has a snowball effect especially when speaking in terms of –images- that are created of a city or culture by tourists. Using John Urry’s hermeneutic circle (The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage Publications, 2002: 129), the images of a culture that tourists are pre-disposed to before visiting that culture influence greatly what they seek out of their experience there—and furthermore, it influences the images –they- create. It’s these photographs that they take back to family and friends that are fed back into the banks of images from which the images that they were pre-disposed to originally came. While the tourist shows the picture they took of the Chevy during their vacation in Cuba to their friends, the tourist’s images of Cuba are forming the mental image of Cuba the tourist’s friends have. Eventually the mental image the tourist’s friends have of Cuba will play a role in the experience they seek during their vacation to the island. In relating it to Old Havana happenings, if one artist realizes that if they paint pictures of brightly-painted Chevrolets they can get CUC, then it might nudge others to do the same since more and more foreigners will be looking to buy those same images that their friend showed them after their trip to Cuba. This is significant because it means that more people might be forced into a way of life in which they must make a cultural sacrifice—for instance, if they don’t agree with the Cuba they are inclined to represent. (There are many cars here that aren’t old American cars. Maybe about a third of the cars on the streets are old and American. Of that third, maybe another third are restored.)
These questions become a lot more significant for me when locating these questions in Cuba because of its contested, Romanticized, and mythologized history. The questions and problems become even deeper knowing of Cuba’s history with foreigners—whether colonial, political, touristic, pre-revolutionary, or post-revolutionary. Finally, how people interact with the tourist economy and industry here is made most complicated by the CUC-land that one must have access to. I suspect people are provoked most to work with tourists first because of the need to have CUC. Second because Cuba’s rich history and how it exists within tourists’ imaginations makes it more accessible to enter the industry.
Image making is made more important because of how easily images are created and how easily they are shared (to families and public via facebook, flickr, camera itself). The creation of images is accessible, as is the viewing of them. Images can become the sole source of information about a culture for people. For me, when any place is mentioned, my mind tries to take me there and give me an mental picture into which I can place myself. Images of countries and cultures I see get sorted in my mind and then called upon when mentioned. For this reason, images of cultures play a big role in how one might see, both literally (what the tourists decides to let themselves see) and figuratively (in one’s mind), a country.
I often wonder if tourists ever go up to a pizza stand on the street and pay for their ten-peso pizza in CUC not knowing that Cuba operates in two currencies.
I think I’ve reached my peso pizza limit.
My glasses tan is developing nicely.
I just got back from Roberto’s where we made sushi. A couple weeks ago when our Spanish class went to his house to learn to make Congrí (rice and black beans) he learned that I knew how to make sushi. He eagerly told me that he had all the ingredients: nori (seaweed), rice vinegar, sushi rice, even eel sauce which he prefers over soy sauce. Today we made five rolls with different combinations of cucumber, bell pepper and the snapper ceviche he made. All very good.
My project is coming along well. Lots of work to do this month in preparation for presentations on the 22nd (?). I’ll be doing a series of about 20 posters as if they were advertisements for Havana as a tourist destination. However, they will incorporate ideas and sentiments of “other Havanas” that exist also. Below is my first stab at the DiTu poster. See previous post for a description. I have ideas for about 11 others, and this week I’ll work on realizing them. Though they won’t be a central part, my presentation will also incorporate the photos I have been taking. If I had time, then I would screenprint the series. Especially since I’ve met printmakers who said I could work with them. Eduardo (tutor) says I won’t have time. Though I’m not letting him know just yet, I’m hoping to prove myself and design with enough time left to print a few of them.
Since the last post, I’ve gotten to know people even better in Havana Vieja. I hung out with the photographers in front of the Capitolio almost everyday this week, as well as seeing the Plaza Vieja cleaner, artists and Jaime from the Office of the Historian. They’ve been a great help in helping me realize different aspects of my work. I have strong intentions of keeping in touch with those who I can after I leave. Who knows when, but at some point in my life I think I’ll be back visiting. Below is Yomár who has been taking photos in front of the Capitolio for the last 15 years since he was in his late teens. He learned from his dad who is the oldest of all the photographers who have been working there.
Last week I visited the Instituto Superior de Arte. It’s in an old American country club that Fidel turned into an art college after the Revolution. Of the work I saw, it all looked pretty nice. The campus is very unique looking.
It sounds like Eduardo will be coming to Hampshire for two months next fall semester and teaching a class/workshop and doing his own work. In the meeting I had with him today he asked a lot of questions about what it would be like living there—in particular about the towns. As he wants to do a workshop and also do some of his own work, a big preoccupation of his is how the themes he works with here (the body, identity, sexuality) could translate to the work he would do at Hampshire. One idea that came up with my explanation of Hampshire was the stereotypes of the five colleges. He seems stimulated by them and maybe what he does at Hampshire will have something to do with that. We’ll see. It’ll be weird to see him on campus.
ADDENDUM: Last post I said: Up until today I had (naively) thought that all people who (cleverly or not so cleverly) asked me for a little change to buy X item saw me as a way to get a quick buck to go towards that night’s bottle of rum (or other nonessential item). I would rather say: Up until today the first thought I usually had about people who (cleverly or not so cleverly) approached me for a little change to buy X item was that they saw me as a way to get a buck to go towards a nonessential item.
