Cuban culture and politics will be the focus of a special presentation to the Ladysmith Camera Club by Dr. Marshall Soules, Ladysmith-based author, educator and photographer.
Cuba Adelante will be presented at the Camera Club’s Hardwick Hall venue, at High Street and Third Avenue, Sept. 27 starting at 7 p.m. For non-members there will be a $5 drop in fee.
The presentation will be a photographic essay of Cuba’s visual culture. It will look at the widespread use of billboards – murales – that have been used by Fidel Castro and his brother Raul to promote the values of the Cuban revolution since 1959.
Documenting, from a Cuban revolutionary perspective, the effects of the USA’s crippling embargo, the withdrawal of Soviet support for Cuba in the 1990s, the presidency of George W. Bush – during which the Cuban propaganda was ‘merciless’, and continuing into the ‘new era’ of President Barack Obama, the murales document the official government perspective in Cuba.
The presentation will conclude with an update from 2016 and a glimpse of the changing visual landscape. “Citizen street art - most noticeable in Havana - adds a powerful voice of expression to compete with government propaganda,” says a Camera Club release.
Soules is an honorary research associate at Vancouver Island University, and former Chair of the Media Studies program.
More information about the Ladysmith Camera Club is available at LadysmithCameraClub.com