Un pedacito de mar/A little piece of the sea by Vivian Poey
Issue 156

These images are a work in progress where I reflect on my family history of place and consider the human impact of migration.

My daughter’s grandparents are exiles from Cuba and Haiti. During a trip to Cuba in 2016 to visit family I noticed that almost anywhere I went in Havana I could see at least a little bit of the sea. I thought of the steady stream of Cubans and Haitians that risk everything to get to the other side. I had spent time researching the history of Cuba and deaths during migration (the majority happen at sea). I found that the data is elusive, documentation is spotty and inevitably political and unreliable, but by any count the numbers are significant.

In an island, the ocean is an ever-present border. The color images document those little bits of the ocean that began to remind me of the dead that that lay within it. The images on those pages are layered with notes on the complicated relationship to politics and truth. The black and white images are family photographs dating from the 1930s to 1959. I am currently researching original images of Cuba with the sea as a backdrop. Many of these images allude to historical events including the Bay of Pigs and the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor.

Vivian Poey (she/her/ella) is a Cuban-American artist who lives and works in Cambridge, MA
@vivipoey

Images © Vivian Poey