City of the Dead II

Art historians consider Havana’s Necropolis de Colon one of most important cemeteries in Latin America, for both its architecture and the marble and granite statuary that grace its 100 acres, carved by some of Cuba’s greatest 19th century sculptors. More than 500 mausoleums are scattered throughout, adorned by arches, cupolas, stained-glass windows and multitudes of angels. Its two main avenues form a cross; an enormous chapel anchors the center. A grid of smaller avenues extend out from the chapel, forming six more crosses.

One can walk for hours down these streets, mostly deserted, feeling as though you are in a private open air sculpture garden in the midst of the city… except that here and there the graceful statues and elaborate tombs are enlivened by the more unassuming gestures of Cuban families - scrubbing marble vaults, adorning a loved one’s grave with fresh flowers, praying to saints.

Among the elegance and grandeur too, the cemetery reveals the scars of violent history. Empty tombs and desecrated chapels disfigure even the most prominent of the avenues. Families forced to flee the Communist revolution of 1959 and the ensuing dictatorship of Fidel Castro remain exiled from their ancestors.

So, I stand with my camera, between flesh and bone, memory and stone, between acts of public devotion and private mourning, between the careful tending of humble graves and casual desecration of elaborate, abandoned tombs. Between Catholic priests in their vestments, Cuban militia strapped with automatic weapons, and devotees of Santeria, who come to bury their dead, dressed head-to-toe in pure blinding white.

My work is to share some of the disparate, dazzling beauty of this City of the Dead. And to bear witness to the small sacred gestures that occur here, honoring that most human of preoccupations - the inevitable and transformative power of death.