Before the Trip / Antes del viaje

The work dismantles the archive as a memory device by intervening in the image with the representation of the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre. I invert the documentary gesture, resulting in an exercise in post-memory, because the original image documents one of the deepest wounds in contemporary Cuban history: the severe migration crisis of 1994. It is not about conducting an archaeology of what happened, but about infusing a new meaning into the archival image, in this case transforming it into a gigantic procession, unifying and healing national traumas. The three Juans return to the sea, this time under the protection of Mother Charity, a symbol and creed that will guide them as
men and as Cubans on their new paths.