Cuban photography has a tradition of being a powerful tool of individual expression as well as political expression during times of collective transformation. The images produced during the revolutionary period captured the sympathy of the world. The hopes and imagination of Latin Americans were fuelled by the work of photographers who produced a set of emblematic photographs and a mythological narrative about the Cuban Revolution and, in particular, about the heroism of its leaders and its people.

The so-called epic photography of Cuban Revolution is the result of a context of intense photographic production. The revolution is an event that has invested in the media from the beginning – Rádio Rebelde started broadcasting from the Sierra Mestra a year before the takeover of Havana – and the breadth of the mass political movement exerted an enormous attraction, capturing the photojournalism made on the island. Photography assumed a central role in the construction and circulation of political messages, constituting a true monument of that time. Instead of statues or pamphlets, thousands of photograms were produced that created and spread an official iconography.

For decades, people in countries like Brazil knew only images that were marked by strong propaganda content. We are just beginning to set up mechanisms to overcome the difficulties in disseminating contemporary Cuban photography outside the island. And though just begun, we have found that creating contact and the possibility of an exchange with a new generation of artists such as Iron Maroselli is, above all, a joy.

The events in Cuba are inscribed in world thought and have gained materiality in the daily lives of its inhabitants. The social experience of creating a “new man” from the change in the relationship with work and collectivization had an impact on generations that were born after the glorious years and experienced a condition of insularity intensified by the political and economic blockage.

The processing of this traditional aesthetic and mythological discourse takes place precisely among young artists who claim the reinvention of their own subjectivity. The future has arrived. There is no more time to wait and in this battle for the right to experience their own individualities, the body appears as a field of debate about social rules and expectations.

Produced between 2010 and 2014 in the form of analogue photography and limited edition prints, the work La Estafa (“trapaça” in Portuguese, meaning “cheating” or “the fraud” in English) embodies the Cuban tradition of reflecting and embodying social change. The artist uses a discarded process to revive the memory of a once shared body of knowledge, bringing materiality to a contemporary problem. This practice concretizes and animates the passing of time, expressing the existence and weight of layers of the past that coexist in living form with present. Applying a measured amount of irony, Maroselli works in the the 21st century context where the past is no longer something glorious, presenting instead as a collection of violent and shameful stories.

In this reckoning, Irolan Maroselli uses his body as a mode of communication. The work is neither the representation nor the record of an action. His photography is the setting for an event with the body as the central nucleus of the investigation. Far from being autobiographical, this exploration provokes the explosion of subject and subjectivity. As a result, we have a set of wandering hybrids and multiples, sometimes male, sometimes female. And sometimes both or neither, though always fluid, and always political.

Of course, this multiple subjectivity is difficult to fit into parochial boundaries. Regardless, it remains a fact that the desires and frustrations of these limitless identities will continue to demand channels of expression. Questions of humanity will never be contained by promises of a bright future. Urgent needs require solutions in the present. Art can be a conduit to dialogue regarding these problems, but its practices must be free and respected.

Photography festivals are important settings to stimulate the creation and circulation of artistic practice. The relationship between FotoFest and Cuban photography is very close, resulting in a series of important artistic exchange activities between regions.

Irolan Maroselli participated in one of these programs, receiving a scholarship to attend the FotoFest 2020 Meeting Place. Wendy Watriss and Fred Baldwin have studied and encouraged Cuba’s photographic art practices, demonstrating their generosity and strong affective bond with generations of Cuban artists. The nomination of Irolan Maroseli for this Ten by Ten edition is also a way of paying homage to their work.