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C U B AAfter seeing the remains of the rafts of desperate Cuban refugees that washed up on Ponte Vedra Beach where I walk, I began this photographic record in 1995. view galleryOnly wet T-shirts, sneakers and water bottles remained in the raft wired together with old 55 gallon drums and styrofoam. These voyages killed an unknown number of Cubans, almost in sight of the Florida beaches. They are a sober reminder of the misery our Cuban neighbors live in, and that our own tax dollars and detached attitudes play a substantial role in continuing. 
With the help of the Centro Nacional De Conservacion, Restauracion Y Museologia in Havana I began this undertaking.
Cuba's 400 years of architecture remains ravishing yet ravaged. Like looking at a broken clock, you're never quite
confident what year it is. My color prints are the beginning of a long term assignment to illustrate the horror
of living in a Marxist economy. The style is most influenced by Walker Evans' seminal work of the 1930s in
unsentimental, formal compositions to let the subjects tell their own stories. The last and only Communist
police state in the western hemisphere has remained largely un-evolved since the 1960 revolution. A lasting
final remnant of Marxism, nearly everyone has the security of being a government employee and living in government
housing. There are no private schools or free press. Synagogues and churches are nearly destroyed. The entrepreneurial
spirit has been mostly wiped out after a generation of Socialism and emigration.
Someday soon I hope to photograph the handprint of free enterprise on these buildings and in the people. These images are being made to experience Socialist Cuba for myself, and share its tragic and beautiful truth with the viewer. Neil Rashba |