Exploring one's roots can be a profoundly enriching journey, helping individuals build their identities. However, for countless people across the globe, delving into a history filled with unresolved narratives resembles the struggle of trying to cultivate a tree with its roots severed from the earth.
A few years back, during a family reunion in Belgium, a teenage relative enthusiastically shared our family tree. In the midst of this presentation, an elder turned to me and inquired whether I had ever traced my lineage back to Cuba. I responded with a blend of irony and skepticism, explaining that piecing together my ancestry felt akin to trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle where most of the crucial pieces are missing.
The challenge lies in the fact that some of my forebears are recorded in the grim statistics of the slave trade—a horrific chapter in history that saw millions ripped from their homes and identities, stripped of any ties to their native lands. The initial act of severance was often changing their names.
This fleeting conversation sparked the inspiration for my project, "Sweet Thing." It is a multidisciplinary effort aimed at reconstructing an elusive past, where sugar serves as a symbolic thread weaving through a fragmented family photo album. This body of work includes archival images, contemporary photographs taken during my travels to my parents' birthplaces, and conceptual self-portraits crafted in my studio.
The visuals may often appear blurred—not due to any technical defect, but rather as an authentic reflection of how memories can fade and become indistinct over time.
In contrast to conventional genealogical approaches, my method is decidedly non-linear. The absence of records and fading stories compels me to piece together memories through the lens of places and imagery.
My research encompasses two isolated Cuban communities linked to the sugar industry—one home to just over 1,200 residents, and the other nearly deserted, where even in 1998, Creole was still spoken. Both communities have experienced drastic population declines due to economic struggles and the downturn of local industries. Through this photographic series, I aim to investigate themes of displacement, resilience, and the delicate nature of inherited memories.
In this project, I reflect on how significant social phenomena, such as slavery, wars, the Holocaust, and major natural disasters, have contributed to the erosion of historical memory—whether through selective forgetfulness, lack of resources, or intentional omission.
The title "Sweet Thing" draws inspiration from lines in Nina Simone's iconic song "Four Women," not as a direct nod to the song's content, but rather as a creative wordplay that highlights one of the fundamental barriers that prevent me—and millions of others—from tracing a clear narrative back to our origins.
This work captures a minuscule segment of a bitter chapter in human history that occurred not so long ago. Each image strives to convert absence into presence, emphasizing that the act of remembering itself carries ethical weight: it is a refusal to let those lives fade into silence.
