HAVANA BUZZ © GAIA LIGHT
© ALESSANDRO COSMELLI004
For the fourth chapter of the Buzz Project, a series of books and multimedia exhibitions based on photo-reconnaissance of contemporary cities, Alessandro Cosmelli and Gaia Light take us inside the famed capital during this period of change, as the nation becomes the last country on earth to emerge from the Cold War.
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Rather than present a picture of the image the world has come to know: the vintage cars, derelict buildings, and cigar-smoking old women, Havana Buzz (Damiani, November 21) creates a portrait of a state of mind, one that is layered in complexity, having survived the corruption of the Batista government and the dictatorship of Castro.
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The following exchange between Miss Rosen and the artists Gaia Light and Alessandro Cosmelli was conducted in early November 2017.
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HAVANA BUZZ © ALESSANDRO COSMELLI
Please talk about the Buzz Series. What is the concept you have been developing with this work?
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Havana Buzz is the third chapter of the ongoing series, The Buzz Project, a symbolic portrait of the contemporary metropolis and its inhabitants, but as viewed through the moving frame of the public bus window. The entire project is realized shooting photos and videos from the special perspective of the public buses of the most iconic contemporary cities.
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The choice of the bus window “as a second lens” is to be considered a statement of purpose or intent – a powerful democratic symbol in itself and a ubiquitous element of the global urban landscape. The bus and its route become markers of a metropolis’s social level of (in-)equity and of its (un-)sustainable patterns of growth.
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In many cities today the bus is actually an outcome of sprawl – a conveyance system for the poor to move from hovel to work and back. Fast-urbanizing areas of the world have also failed to supply the necessary infrastructure to support incessant expansion. What we see, as a result, moving from center to periphery, for example, is the very fabric of inequality.
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The work is conceived as a multi-series documentary project, with the ultimate goal of composing a multifaceted commentary on contemporary urban life. As series, we are able to address modern-day issues as they unfold, such as urbanization, social justice, and the environmental conditions of urban habitats in general. This is a “symbolic photographic portrait” of the contemporary metropolis in this specific time in history, a celebration of urbanity itself. The central motif is “the portrait”: how we live, prosper and/or simply survive in globalized urban habitats that are increasingly and alarmingly becoming contested sites in all senses of the word. Our main focus is on the human landscape, the people who represent the soul of any city.
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So far we have initiated eight installments (Brooklyn, Milano, São Paulo, Havana, Mumbai, Istanbul, Mexico City, and Paris) and published three books (Brooklyn Buzz, Milano Buzz, and Havana Buzz). As with the first two chapters, Havana Buzz has been published by Damiani Editore – for us and the project a major point of pride. We consider The Buzz Project as an invitation to open the eyes of consciousness on the beauty of everyday life, no matter how stressful that everyday life may or may not be. We are proud that the main inspiration for the project is Robert Frank’s 1958 series, From the Bus.
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HAVANA BUZZ © ALESSANDRO COSMELLI
How did you come to choose Havana for the site of the latest book?
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We usually select cities on the basis of social, economic, demographic, geographic, and historical considerations. Each city presents its own characteristics and uniqueness, which combined become crucial for the realization of a universal portrait of contemporary urban reality.
Havana Buzz features a wide selection of pictures that were taken in Havana in 2015. Shrouded in myth and contradiction, Havana is a city like no other, one of the most iconic and controversial metropolises in the world. We purposely chose to explore Cuba’s capital at a time of crucial transition, in the wake of much-awaited historical change, eventually epitomized by the departure of its long-time dictator the following year.
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We aimed at creating an unbiased visual account of contemporary Havana, while a passionate support for the cause of a free and democratic Cuba has motivated every step of our endeavor. Although documenting the daily struggles of the population, our work is ultimately a form of praise for the dignity that endures all hardship and that has secretly guarded the seeds of hope, saving them for the time when they can finally be sown.
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HAVANA BUZZ © GAIA LIGHT
What did you expect to find in Havana – and what surprised you?
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We expected to find a struggling city, weakened by long years of isolation and crises. We knew we were about to explore a decadent yet charming and fascinating urban environment. What surprised us though was the beauty and extreme dignity of the people, plus the richness of the culture, the simple but consistent lifestyle, the inventiveness and creativity of the people.
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We were able to engage in incredibly insightful conversations about cinema, literature, and Italian poetry with perfect strangers randomly met on the bus or in the streets, we were constantly stunned by the originality and self-styling abilities of the younger generations surely inspired by their grandmothers, mothers and sisters, fantastic queens of elegance.
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HAVANA BUZZ © ALESSANDRO COSMELLI
I love that your perspective goes beyond the stereotypical portrait of Cuba and gives a deeper, more nuanced portrait of the people. What is the message you would like to share with the world about the people of Havana?
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The message is an invitation to push harder to break the stereotypes – to look at the people and the places in the photographs and see our own selves in the daily struggle for survival. It is a message of empathy and a message of freedom – a freedom from the chains of anachronistic ideology and a freedom from the stereotypes of misrepresentation. The perspective of The Buzz Project is a democratic one, synchronized as best we might accomplish with that of the common citizen who actually rides the buses in order to move around, to merely function, and to honor the role bestowed by society, no matter how humble that role may be. We do not feel like nor wish to be perceived as intruders.
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Both as visual storytellers and documentarians we focus on “reality.” This reality we witness actually “spirals” away from the windows of the buses we ride – out into the city. We do not pretend that this is sociological or objective in any sense. It is a conflation of art and documentary photography. In many senses that is also what gives the work an intensely humanistic “edge.”
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We feel this as a huge privilege that strongly effects our sense of responsibility toward the fair representation of such complex urban realities as the one we discovered in Havana: our book and efforts are entirely dedicated to the dignity, pride, creativity, hospitality, and beautiful culture of the Cuban people. We hope the long-awaited change now coming will be respectful of the dignity and greatness of the Cuban culture and people. Time has come for a revolution that serves the people rather than ideologies.
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HAVANA BUZZ © GAIA LIGHT
HAVANA BUZZ © GAIA LIGHT