A New Visual Canon for Cuba

For the first time, the Catálogo de fotógrafas cubanas (Catalogue of Cuban Female Photographers) brings together the works of Cuban female photographers from the 19th century to the present. The project, with a distinct historiographic and critical character, focuses on the plurality of female, trans, queer and other non-binary voices as a way to rewrite the canon of photography and promote social change. The Catálogo is an interactive online platform that offers information for artists, curators, critics and other cultural agents through a dynamic database of creators, publications, exhibitions and tenders. Another important objective of the catalogue is to highlight the contribution by female artists to contemporary art – in talks, exhibitions, editorial projects as well as through partnerships with universities, museums and other organizations.

Conceived in 2013 by the Cuban curator and researcher Aldeide Delgado, Catálogo de fotógrafas cubanas aims to locate, document and recognize the scattered and insufficiently known information about the creators and contributors to the development of Cuban photography. Beginning in 1853 with the recovery of the first Cuban photographer, Encarnación Iróstegui, a process of memory restauration is developed, contributing to the self-knowledge and self-esteem of women as photographers. At the same time, the Catálogo lays the foundations for the development of a historiography where the creators obtain the visibility they were denied until now.

Catálogo de fotógrafas cubanas