2013, Draakon Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
The place still has the charm that I remember from my first visit there a few decades ago. The nostalgia of hopelessly lost times is still visible there wherever you go, all you have to do is to choose the century and the decade. The remains of Havana’s original glory can be seen everywhere – the quarters filled with the mixture of Neo-Baroque Creole architecture and the whole European architectural heritage up to the 1950’s streamline. Once an elegant city of bright lights, Havana is now buried in destitution where glory and misery run riot in the middle of the ruins.
Degradation is an inevitable phase of life; in one or another way it will happen to the mundane world – the material, the organic, and the inorganic. The concentration of decomposed and declining substance in architecture of Havana is extremely high. The blocks of sedimentary rocks that were once used for constructing the palaces of Malecón seawall still reveal the sinters of ancient shellfish. The touch of death and past is always present here – both in the past, in the present and in the future.
Malecón is a broad esplanade and seawall streching along the coast in Havana, Cuba. The photographs used for the current exhibition have been taken in January 2012.
„The Dog“ by Orest Kormašov; clay, armature; 2011