CENIZAS DEL DÍA DESPUÉS

ASHES OF THE DAY AFTER

Environment
2019
4.30W x 3.80L Mtr
Box of Ground and Raspadura (Trditional candy of sugar cane)

I project an agricultural structure shaped like furrows into the gallery, then it is fertilized with crushed Raspadura (a traditional Cuban dessert). As the days pass the piece suffers of decomposition.

Ashes of te day after, is an environment that is articulated from the decline of our historical production seal: the sugar matrix, but from a manufactured and clandestine industry that is almost entirely related to domestic consumption.

I pose a problem without solution, a circle that is closed, where tradition gradually dissolves on a land that returns to its fertile beginnings. The compost (ground scrape) melts on the surface, which gives the work an ephemeral character of temporary degradation. The stubble rots on the earth, flooding the space with a nauseating odor and simulating the texture of a field that has been burned.

The reconversion of the sugar sector has brought with it, in many localities, the emergence of new behaviors, among which stands out as a profitable aspect, the resurgence of traditional activities, as an alternative to the margin of legality and as a socioeconomic solution, a guarantee of survival and persistence of belonging to certain localities. The predominance of the national perspective of development has shown the limited capacity of the localities to revert, by self-management, the problematic situation in which they find themselves. 1

The word raspadura in today's Cuban context has broadened its meaning considerably, the popular slang has turned it into a symbol of the needs of society. Little by little in the public imagination, we have become an empire of raspadura, where surviving on a daily basis is the only option, given that there is no way to plan the economy in the long term with total certainty that it will be effective. Hence, a mulch of ground scratch (tradition) covers the virgin soil like a veil, in an effort to fertilize it for what is to come.

1 González Mastrapa, Ernel (2017): Gobiernos Municipales y Desarrollo local en el contexto cubano del nuevo siglo, Aproximación sociológica. Joint edition: UNESCO International Chair Sustainable Human Development, Department of Sociology, University of Havana. Havana. p.33