Nothing happens in Cuba 

Nothing happens in Cuba. And it happens outside, in front of people´s houses where children play baseball and football and the elderly play domino and chess. Where you chat, drink rum, and where you can´t escape the reggeaton music playing loudly day and night. No advertising (despite revolutionary mantras on billboards), no Western television, and no magazines praising the newest fad diets can break this Cuban tranquility nor its people´s physical self confidence.

That´s when a dog walks by. Or not. And that’s when history suddenly unfolds. Cuba is a compost heap for history. You can still taste and smell its past: being part of the Soviet empire, right in America´s front yard. Providing pleasure and playing grounds for the Mafia. Being rich as one of the world´s leading sugar producers and being poor at the side of collapsing states. A hot spot for slavery, a paradise for conquerors. And, of course, the stage to the world´s most famous revolution, followed by a minor side effect: the upraise of today’s most cliché-ridden hallmark of revolution.

In a period of two years I have visited Cuba four times. I was there when the first direct flight between Cuba and the United States took place and day after day more and more Americans flooded the streets of Havana. I was there when Fidel Castro was buried and during the official state mourning period when alcohol, music and dancing were prohibited. I was there when US president Trump announced to revise his predecessor´s concessions to Cuba. And I was there when nothing happened, like every day on Cuban streets – when so many little things are waiting to be discovered just around the next corner.

Nothing happens in Cuba. And yet I never ceased to discover and find while walking the streets of Cuba and meeting its people. I discovered its originality, I found a special kind of innocence and I was able to capture many visual events with my camera.