History includes a wealth of cities that have disappeared. More rare are those that become dormant, cities frozen in history which decay steadily. Havana is such a city. When I visited Cuba (Trinidad and Havana), I felt like being in a theatre, the cities have being still for forty years, they have an urban and social typology. Unlike the urban utopias carried out by socialist governments in certain central and eastern European countries, in Havana Castro did not try to make a clean sweep of its architectural heritage. On the contrary, this heritage has been preserved, or rather abandoned. Cubans are still living there as the time did not pass. They are part of the present, but outside of time and now also outside of History.

By Arantxa Alcubierre. Havana. Cuba. 2009

Click Photos Cuba to see some of the photographs I took, landscapes and portraits taken on the street with a meaningful contest