My works pulls from my Cuban upbringing as well as the ever changing diversity and gentrification of my island heritage. Like the majority of small towns and once isolated populations, I have watched our culture become absorbed, sanitized and repackaged for safe consumption. 

For my current project I wanted to take a very specific aspect of my disappearing culture, the Santeria religion, and explore it through both my childhood memories and my adult feelings of loss and defiance. At one time Santeria was the dominant religion of the Caribbean. The slaves of Africa brought their native religions with them and once they arrived they hid their religion behind Catholicism, synchronizing their Gods with the Catholic Saints. I find the aspect of native culture having to hide in plain site both powerful and heartbreaking in equal measure. Santeria has faded into the forgotten corners in many cultures but, in my youth, it was just as important as any mainstream religion. I grew up, like so many others, believing a penny soaked in honey and buried in a paper sack would bring back lost love.  

For this project I first pulled inspiration from my personal history. The goal was not a faithful recreation of the Saints but the transference of my childhood memories.  I then drew upon compositions to encapsulate both the sense of wonder I used to feel and the defiance and pride of a tradition fighting for survival. Next, I sought out friends, family-members, and strangers whose stories and life experiences most closely matched the Saint whose spirit I was attempting to capture.

Although created with a modern tool, the digital camera, the final result is an analog experience. The tension between modern tools and an analog finish both contrasts and adds strength to the final images. Through faded sepia the Saints reach out to us. They fight and struggle, like so many of us in this modern world, to not be forgotten. Mike