« Sugar is our story, without it, it is impossible to understand the essence and the soul of Cuba ».
Eusebio Leal Spengler
Eusebio Leal Spengler
DESMEMORIA
Immersed in the heart of Cuba, I met the inhabitants of the bateyes (villages) of the sugar factories still active or abandoned and the sugar workers to witness these lives sacrificed and immortalize these trades so emblematic of the island, condemned to disappear.
Through these portraits made with a field camera, I wanted to photograph different profiles of Cubans born from the miscegenation coming from the sugar cane plantations and to reflect the influence of Castro propaganda on the identity of Cubans. By approaching each portrait, the observer can discover a filigree phrase repeated infinitely but imperceptible at first sight since it merges with the subject of reference.
GUAJIROS
SILENCIAR
The Silenciar series deals with a universal subject, the feelings and emotions that can not be expressed freely. Through ghostly and statuary stagings, each repressed word is then replaced by the gestures of disjointed bodies, both powerful and resigned.
THE BOOK
Desmemoria is a photographic, anthropological and social testimony to the community of Cuban azucareros – workers of the sugar industry and the revolutionaries of the first hour.
Pierre-Elie de Pibrac lived nearly a year in immersion with various Cuban families in this community. Through this experience, the photographer questions the end of utopias in a people who believed and worked to incarnate the Castro dream. This project tells how Cubans now apprehend their daily lives, how they look at their recent history.
An unique novel by Zoé Valdés brings a complementary light to this photographic narrative.
An original drawing by the Cuban artist Alejandro Campins closes the book.
