Things up until day 85
Long time no write. It is Thursday, April, 21, 2011 at 10:35 am. Exactly a week from now I’ll be waking up at Hampshire figuring out what to eat because I will have not gotten a chance to shop since flying in the previous night. I suspect that everything will feel have felt like a dream. It will feel incredibly weird to wake up in Havana, and go to bed in Amherst. After living in a place for three months that was sometimes so different from Hampshire or LA, being transported within 24 hours to usual life will feel unreal. Maybe it will feel UNusual.
Time has flown by. It seems like yesterday that I was standing at Hampshire surrounded by my luggage and snow waiting for the bus. At the same time, things we did during orientation here seem like they happened ages ago. I’m not exactly sure what’s up with Cuba and time, but the country certainly isn’t frozen in it.
Yesterday I met with Raupa who is the graphic designer I met at the Muestra Joven film festival at the end of February. He and Nelson Ponce, another designer, gave a talk about the importance of design in the beginning credits of films. They showed and talked about examples in films like Sherlock Holmes and Catch Me If You Can. After the talk I approached Raupa. He gave me his number saying that I should call him when I had work that he could critique. Last Sunday I called him and we arranged a meeting for Wednesday at his place in Nuevo Vedado, about a 20 minute walk from where I’m living. I showed him a small selection of previous work. Stopping on The Reader (Hampshire’s student produced art and literature journal), we got on the theme of access to printing here. Because of the possibility of the dissemination of undesirable materials, it is nearly impossible to get even a zine printed, let alone something like The Reader. He also attributed a lack of innovative design to the restriction of advertising here. You don’t see advertisements for products or services, instead TV spots and billboards for cultural events. Raupa explained to me how signs one might see in the US that are designed (nicely or not), instead are sometimes painted by hand here. No, no, no. Not romantically painted by someone whose dad’s dad’s dad was a sign painter who passed the family trade down through the generations. He attributed a lack of attention paid to design due to people who need a sign for their sandwich stand and hastily throw something together. When I asked about a community of designers, he said there are about 10. We bonded over stories of clients who always ask for more. Despite all the adverse characteristics of the Cuban (design) world he was describing to me, he said he would never leave. I have had this conversation many times: descriptions of how things here “aren’t easy,” but that there is no other place in the world they would rather live. I’ll be staying in touch.
Now it’s Friday, April 22, 2011 at 12:59 pm. I’m at Roberto’s about to print the program that laid out for tomorrow’s presentations. On Wednesday we spent seven hours at Carol’s. Each person rehearsed their presentation and received feedback from everyone else. Later today I’ll go to UNEAC (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists) to mount my work. I picked up my prints yesterday and they look great. I did some trimming and made a gadget that will help me evenly space out the work.
Monday a group of us is going to the beach. It will be my first time.
I recently borrowed a bunch of guidebooks from Roberto after I saw them sitting on his shelf. A Lonely Planet and a Rough Guide. Looking through them I realized there touristy things I still haven’t done. Next Tuesday I’m planning on going to Old Havana to say last goodbyes and partake in some touristy things I have always seen but never done (Cámara Obscura, Ambos Mundos, Museo de Naipes, Floridita, Bodeguita del Medio).
Here’s my artist statement:
Unlike other guidebooks, the cover of The Rough Guide to Cuba does not depict tropical beaches, mojitos, old American cars, people dancing, colonial architecture, Che, or even cigars. Instead, the reader is introduced to the Rough Guide with a photo of newly painted tiles cemented in a wall indicating in an elegant font, “CALLE BARATILLO.” Hand-painted designs symmetrically frame the words with forms that reflect the curves and points of shells and leaves. Bright green paint chips off of the wall that surrounds the street sign to reveal a beige stone color. Despite this image’s uniqueness among guidebook covers, it still makes the comparison between the old and new, the exuberant and deteriorated, that Cuba’s most commonly reproduced images communicate.
Images convey emotions and sentiments about cultures. For the outsider, images form the basis of their understanding of places and people. This power of the image is what unites my interests in graphic design and tourism. Las Habanas calls upon images and taglines that surfaced during conversations with tourists and locals. The series refers to pre-revolutionary visual styles used to entice American tourists to make reference to the city’s touristic history. The display includes photos to give context to the Havanas that the posters reference.
Las Habanas is driven by a desire to find out how the distinct Havanas of tourists and locals overlap and interact. It explores the spaces between the old and new, the needed and wanted, and the Romantic and routine. The piece brings forth and considers the Havanas that exist amongst touristic perceptions of the city and the sides of the city more commonly lived. Through the mingling of image and text taken from guidebooks, interviews, and historical materials, the project addresses a multi-dimensional Havana experience. The series elongates and blurs the spectrum that spans between the constructed and the lived. Las Habanas negotiates between the Havanas that are imagined and sought, and the Havanas that are perpetually reiterated and consumed. In a non-accusatory way, the series’ ironic tone hopes to implicate each viewer in the process of how cultural images are produced and imagined.
