Sweet Thing

Sweet Thing is a project that uses sugar as a symbolic thread to connect a broken family album as part of a history of displacement and erasure faced by millions of people worldwide. I create blurred visuals that echo the elusive nature of memory.

Sweet Thing is a project that uses sugar as a symbolic thread to connect a broken family album. I make blurry pictures that remind me of how memory works by combining old, rare photos of my Cuban ancestors with new photos from my visits to their old homes.

The title of the series is based on a part of Nina Simone's famous song "Four Women". It's not a direct reference to the song's content but rather a word play that I use to try to address one of the main reasons why it's hard for me and millions of other people to trace our roots.

My method is nonlinear, unlike traditional genealogical records. I have to build memories using places and images because I don't have all the papers and stories I need to draw a coherent imaginary line to our origins.

My research encompasses two isolated Cuban communities associated with the sugar industry—one with slightly over 1,200 inhabitants and the other nearly deserted, where Creole was still spoken as of 1998.

I want to look into displacement, survival, erasure, and the fragile nature of inherited memory through this series. This could be through selective amnesia, a lack of references, or omission.