Summer Residency in Havana, Cuba

 
 
 

Good news this morning: my summer artist residency application in Havana, Cuba was ACCEPTED! I will be spending the first half of July working on a photo project that has been simmering on the back burners of my mind for the last 3 years since my mother passed. I want to develop a series of photographs and text for a photo book about identity, place, and loss and I’m looking forward to immersing myself in work and the motherland.

I took the photo above in 2015 after being picked up from the Havana airport my first night in Cuba. I remember being struck by the dim yellow of the street lights and how the air smelled like sweet diesel. I felt giddy, my eyes darting around in a state of awe from the backseat of the 1955 Chevy Bel Air. Looking at this photo, it really strikes me how much of an outsider I was (and still feel I am).

I want to say a big THANK YOU to Dana Funaro for helping me organize myself to even apply! And to Tanya Aguiñiga for nurturing the idea, because — yeah, making room for a safe space to explore is so important. How easy to forget.

 
Art-Making & MusingsGina Clynegina clyne, photography, los angeles, california, los angeles photography, application, art practice, artist residency, contemporary art, cuba, cuban, cubano, daughter of an immigrant, diaspora, explore, grief, habana, havana, identity, immigrant, loss, mother, mother cuba, motherland, multiracial, photographer, place, resident artist, summer, travel