A game of chess on the street, a phone call that can be heard among the crowd, a trip on train on the way home. Daily lives of common persons in Cuba and the United States. Images like mirrors that discover what joins us despite the differences in culture and language. Mirrors, moreover, to look at ourselves and to redefine how much we have assimilated for decades what’s on “the other shore.” When one leaves home to get to know other places, we bring with us the concern of understanding what is happening before our eyes. We have two basic budgets to achieve this: the surprise when faced with the difference and the exoticism of what goes beyond our capacity to understand or, on the contrary, the search for resemblances to our own world. The point of departure of the Common Places | Lugares comunes photographic project (Cuba-U.S. / 2014-2016) is the latter proposal. It began before the 17D, before President Obama’s trip, before Donald Trump’s electoral victory. With these events, or without them, it would have existed anyway since it is born from a humanism that tries to transcend the differences exacerbated for decades from both sides of the...

Cocodrilos (Spanish for “Crocodiles”) is a village in the eastern part of the Zapata Swamp that for over three centuries lived on coal production. At some point in its history, the village came to have over 400 inhabitants, but today, little more than 100 people live there. The establishment in the area of a forest reserve in 2002 not only deprived the locals of their source of income, it also crushed their spiritual life. The elementary school was closed because there are no kids left. They have been taken away by their parents, who have had to relocate to find jobs in other places. The road that connects the village to the Bay of Pigs, the closest town, is extremely deteriorated. The government has allocated resources every now and then to fix it, but the materials are shamelessly stolen in front of the eyes of the villagers. The elders stayed behind, stubbornly refusing to leave, as normally happens with people who are too old to learn how to lead a different life. The most urgent question for the villagers right now is getting connected to the national power distribution network. At present, a diesel generator provides eight hours of electricity...

There are those who refer to it as a sierra, but a sierra is a small mountain range. Actually, the Escambray is a mountainous mass, and its indigenous name is Guamuahaya. Located in the center of the island, it soars into peaks and drops into gullies and cascades. At its base lies the city of Trinidad, founded in the colonial era, and the towns of Cumanayagua and Manicaragua. On the southern coast, the curved bridges of the recently renovated highway rise above beaches of stone and sediment, where the fast-flowing rivers of the Escambray empty into the Caribbean Sea. The highest peak is Pico San Juan, at 1,140 meters. From the hills, Cubans extract coffee, lumber and honey, and the heart of the Escambray holds one of the purest quartz deposits in the world. Photo: Carlos Ernesto Escalona Martí Three provinces share this geography: Cienfuegos, Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus, but all roads lead to Topes de Collantes. Since the mid-20th century, Topes has been home to a monumental tuberculosis sanitarium, today the Kurhotel Escambray. Less than a two-hour walk away are the Vegas Grandes and the Caburní waterfalls. A bit further—and preferably accessed by vehicle—are the Guanayara and El...