90 Miles Cuba-US is an installation that I made in 2011 when I was living in Cuba and was invited to an artistic residency at The Fountainhead in Miami. The work was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, during the 11th Havana Biennial in 2012 and at the Archaeological Museum of Venice as part of the 55th Biennial in 2013. It was also shown later in museums in Key West & Tampa, cities with a crucial importance for Cuban emigration.

This piece is part of a larger project that would be composed of several Bridges-walkways, made of photographs and light boxes on an aluminum structure, which would symbolically link the borders of countries and places with great migratory conflicts and population movements, motivated by poverty, war or political crises. Among them the Straits of Florida: Cuba-USA / Mexico-US Border / Adriatic Sea Italy- Croatia- Albania / Mediterranean Sea Morocco-Spain among others.

90 Miles, 2 x 3 x 30ft bridge is built so that spectators can walk on it. The installation is dismountable and is composed of 2 ladders and 6 light boxes with 12 photos showing aerial views of the sea on the way from the cities of Havana to Miami and vice versa. Conceptually, this interactive work invites the viewer to climb over the bridge traveling, illusively in a few minutes, over the waters of the Florida Strait. This Caribbean Sea connects the two extremes of a complicated and variable mental geography that embodies the critical socio-political and economic relationship that has strained the collective and individual destinies of both countries for the last 60 years. A trip so short and geographically close, but so distant and tragic for the thousands of Cubans who have lost their lives in this migratory exodus.

Although the theme of Migration has been constant in my work since the late 1980s,” this work was conceived in 2011 during the process of rapprochement and normalization of Cuba-US relations wisely undertaken by President Barack Obama. This seemed to be the only viable way to help democratization in Cuba, supporting the private sector, improving the individual life of the average citizen and, at the same time, their capacity for political independence, confrontation and resistance to the current government of the island. 90 Miles in a way is a work that celebrated the opening of these relationships, establishing this bridge of hope between Cubans and Americans.

Unfortunately, at this time October 2020 we find ourselves in a completely different situation, much more terrible due to the immobility and inability of the Cuban regime to satisfy its population and to the measures of President Donald Trump to reverse all the advances in the relationship with Cuba and the empowerment of Cuban civil society. The effects of the Corona virus Crisis throughout the world, are of course aggravated in the poorest countries and the people of Cuba are on the precipice of a continuous economic crisis for which the government emphasizes its strength, control and isolation of a citizenship that depends entirely on official gifts and remittances sent from abroad by its emigrants.

Being invited by the curator Lance Fung to present this work at Illuminations Coral Gables is an honor and also a challenge because I feel that the work needs to adapt to this difficult historical moment in the world, where fear, individual isolation, economic instability, ideological and political divisions become extreme and there seems to be no room for tolerance. For this reason, and due to the impossibility of the viewer walking on the piece imposed by the event organizers, it seems imperative to reinterpret and de-construct the piece, turn the bridge once more into a representation of utopia. A bridge divided, impassable, isolated, fragmented, that expresses the frustration and sadness at this moment, but in the end a bridge of blue waters, of beautiful cities, of family and friends, of clouds and dreams that I hope one day not too far away we can between all of us to build and walk again.