Havana Revisited: An Architectural Heritage
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 3–June 1, 2010
El Morro, Havana. Photo (right) by Cathryn Griffith.
This exhibition immediately brought to mind a great observation: “In order for things to remain the same, there must be change.” But the Havana in Cathryn Griffith’s images tells a different story. Although things have remained the same, there has been no change to the urban fabric, making it seem almost fossilized.
Griffith’s urban documentation — a nostalgic then-and-now comparison of vintage postcards with her own modern photographs — captures Havana as a living colonial museum. The photos by themselves would have been simple episodic glimpses of the city, but combined with the postcards, they become a narrative that takes us through time and makes us think beyond the art before us. The social and cultural issues plaguing Havana today, which created the fossilized city in these images, suddenly become the point, which remains frustratingly beyond the reach of this exhibition.
The social and cultural issues plaguing Havana today are presented and discussed at length in a 30-minute video which is part of this exhibition. Excerpts of this video will be posted soon at http://www.havanarevisited.com.