http://www.excellencesmagazines.com/Arte/English/a(366057)-Show-face.html

Show your face

Texts: Laura Ruiz Montes Photos:

On the bottom left there is a little map of Cuba. It could be covered with the thumb. Floating below it there is an inscription in Bulgarian announcing the Cuban collection. I don’t know a word in Bulgarian. Despite the emotional recollection of scented oils from Bulgarian roses whose aroma baptized nearly everyone in the island more than forty years ago, I was never able to withhold the language at all. The Saint George Cathedral and the beautiful Sophia were stamped in trip journals by Cubans from the old times when they used to travel across former Socialist countries for such a low price that could be afford just with their regular worker’s salaries.

What could be hidden under the thumb is quiet visible in the title: Faces, Bodies, Personas. And even more so in a kind of subtitle: Tracing Cuban Stories. It is a book of photographs by Babak Salari published by Janet 45 Print and Publishing1 with an opening note in two languages (English/Bulgarian) by Thomas Waugh2 and a praiseworthy introductory text by Norge Espinosa.

Babak Salari was born in Shiraz, in 1959, but he studied at the Concordia University and Dawson College. He became a specialist–so to speak– on black and white documentary photography. He has lived in Canada for more than twenty years; from there, he thoroughly studies Diaspora identities and marginalities. His work showing the effects of the occupation of Iraq on women and children, his photographs of Palestine refugees, his documentation of the Afghan reality made him a cultural activist capable of living under any kind of social tension and of turning his images into metaphors, incarnation and supporting ground of the philosophy of that that can’t be further postponed.

Faces, Bodies, Personas… groups two series of pictures. It opens with the Bodies and Personas pages which, at the same time derive from the Queer at the Margins of Society series bringing together snapshots of gay and travesty people in Havana. And then comes Faces, full of portraits of Cuban writers and artists.

Thomas Waug is happily surprised by the mix of this being together, of this vis-à- vis: “And it is amazing how felicitously the two sub-groups come together”. It is this beautiful rareness what moves viewers. It is the beautiful and dangerous rareness. The surprise factor itself gives away a mechanism that is not functioning well. There is something that doesn’t fit, but not in Salari’s collection of photographs, but in the viewers.

It shouldn’t be weird; it shouldn’t be amazing, this new positioning of margins and patterns. But being used as we are to hierarchies and exclusions, certain balance gives way to amazement. Babak Salari brings things to a balance, levels them up, makes justice. He turns what’s left out visible and without exoticism and publicities he photographs the face behind the mask. Or the mask beating almost at the same pace as the face.

The skin clean, recovered from the exhaustion by so much make-up, is what he shows. What is still repeatedly censured and stoned looks at the camera and lets itself be seen. It is the marginality reflected on the lens of the also marginal Iranian.

Sometimes, in one of the pages of the book very appealing young men with delicious firm lips break in and move around to look at the lens with the feminine and sensual beauty exhibited in the Caribbean night. Gays and travesties are photographed in the intimacy of the makeup time, in their pure act of cross- dressing; in the intimacy of suggestive caresses and naked torsos. Such intimacy is not broken at the last step because it can still be made public and shown in the pictures, owed to the documental and urban style of Diane Arbus and, in some way, from the same trend followed by Walker Evans during the Great Depression who took important pictures in Cuba in 1933 related with the revolution against Gerardo Machado.

In the other pan of the scales are writers and artists who came down from the Olympus, part with patterns. All in the same level, placed in their right place: together with other bodies and personas, Salari brings them back as people. He bedims the aura of mystery and attraction shed from their books, their periodical appearances, their important awards, their chairs in academies and also–why not– eases their lives freeing them from so big and sacred responsibilities arising from their public existence.

This group includes artists who we can’t tell if they were selected at random or after a search to reflect the intentionality of the images. We don’t know if there was a previous registration, or if a field work of an anthropological research was made, truth is that many of the photographed faces have years of work with, close to or within marginality hanging over them. And they embody lives that at different times have deeply gazed at bodies, desire and identities.

The portraits I specially recommend pass by my rereading of intertwining coordinates, I can’t do it in a different way. That’s how I look at Margarita Mateo and hear in the silence of her photograph the confession: “I don’t know where this vocation of mine for the marginal, the peripheral comes from. Truth is that I tend to find “centers” boring, the established turns monotonous, and many times I feel more comfortable turning to the dark and hidden paths of Marginalia.”3

Anton Arrufat, elegant, standing, with only one part of the face illuminated by the light coming through a window that seems to assist his own writing “Faith Tournament”, delicate, terribly sad and shaking poem falling within the line of the best Cuban homoerotic poetry.

We were lovers but sometimes we were friends. Or we were such friends that sometimes we used to love one another./ To add a new ring to our wedlock, we decided to duel. We went to pick weapons: two swords of equal length and cast./ We got set since dawn, adjusting helmets and gantlets, riding on horseback as we stood face to face./ We are still so:/ timeless, fierce, inexorable, trying to beat with just one stroke and for the other for forever more.4

Rocio Garcia is sitting on the floor. To her left, there is a closed door on which, with a pencil, thin crayon or pen, “The beast. The animal” has been written. This painter, scathing in her art, brings to light deep conflicts of men’s imaginary. Her men, machos, seamen, tamers (sort of characters that appear in her paintings) jump out from the marginality and the periphery, settling in the realms of the power that for centuries has belonged to the heterosexual posture. Knife sailors, card players gathered at a bar, firearms holders, military chiefs, army squads are her key words. The voyeur, the punisher, the beauty of pain and the pain of beauty; the theories and masturbations; the mirror and the mask; the density of tradition and the detoxification of that same density; violence and repression; intimidation; power, the minute of glory; the change of identities are the marginal topics deployed in the creative work and are, undoubtedly, the background music of her face photographed by Babak Salari.

Norge Espinosa, author of the introductory study, was also photographed. Being both “judge and party” doesn’t cloud reasoning so as to appreciate his most valuable essence–and gifted with impartiality–, these pictures. Espinosa traces an interesting history of the different moments in the treatment of homosexuality in Cuba. He lays a fleeting (because the space doesn’t leave room for more) but enriching background of the incidence/presence of homosexuality in the Cuban culture until the visibility provided by the film Strawberry and Chocolate, and the true meaning of the Mejunje, a multicultural center created and promoted by Ramon Silverio in the city of Santa Clara. Espinosa has also covered with his work a route within marginality. He wrote, while still very young, the anthological poem “Vestido de Novia” (Wedding Dress), being absolutely aware that these verses are part of one of the most visible regions of his work:

Following this way, we’ll have to stop in other faces beautifully photographed by Salari, which I insist–once again– shouldn’t be look at as photographsof independent variable but as the link between the portraits and the latitudes of their respective work. Rene Peña, of whom there is a picture full of great expressive strength, is, in turn, an important Cuban photographer. His marginal series: Man Made materials, from 1999 and White Things make up together with his photographed face a circulating whole aiming at the search of the black body, the quest in the sanctuary of the black skin.

Researcher Tomas Fernandez Robaina, also photographed in Faces, Bodies, Personas… wrote El negro en Cuba 1902-1958 (Black people in Cuba 1902-1958); he is an expert on Nicolas Guillen’s work and his main concern is the constant of the black movement and thinking in Cuba. Once again the link is established, the pin fastens the cape.

I prefer not to make the list longer. I just wanted to refer to what I believe are implicit links between the two series of pictures, and which make up a solid poetic of image as generator and articulator of realities. There is something else uniting both series: the look upon the bottom, upon the environment. One example is Havana’s solares which are part of the background of Jorge Angel Perez, a talented writer whose narrative exercise goes deep in the different sides of the body and marginality. The social milieu, the environment and the daily life of the epic Cuban bring the parts of the documentary collection of photographs closer together.

But there is also something that brings the two series apart. In most of the photos of gays and travesties, they protect each other or act as their own bodyguard before a mirror of two sides that shows a split image or one accompanied by itself in the combination of both faces. However, writers, artists appear always and invariably by themselves, turned into lonely marginal people dedicated to the amazing art of the long-distance runner and to the perennial banishing isolation.

In any case, faces either alone or accompanied are photographs of bodies that live, die and renew themselves, shed their skin in the race to regenerate themselves later in today’s Cuba. They are fragments of a nation that Babak Salari put together to show the diversity and mixture, the variables and permanence. They are the bodies of resistance, the survivors of many crises. They are what Norge Espinosa so rightly defined as: “the only real possession, that, without shame, lets itself be seen, looks at the camera and offers itself”.

Dejarse ver

Texts: Laura Ruiz Montes Photos:

En la esquina inferior derecha hay un pequeño mapa de Cuba. Un dedo pulgar podría taparlo. Bajo él navega una inscripción en búlgaro que anuncia la colección cubana. No conozco siquiera una palabra en búlgaro. A pesar del registro afectivo que se remonta a aquellos aceites perfumados de rosas búlgaras cuyos aromas bautizaron a casi todos en la Isla hace ya más de cuarenta años, nunca logré retener nada del idioma. La catedral de San Jorge y la hermosa Sofía quedaron en el anecdotario de viajes de antaño, que conducían a los cubanos por los otroras países socialistas a un precio que sus salarios de obreros alcanzaban a pagar.

Lo que podría quedar oculto bajo el dedo, alcanza relevante visibilidad en el título: Faces, Bodies, Personas. Y más en una especie de subtítulo: Tracing Cuban Stories. Se trata de un libro de fotografías de Babak Salari publicado por Janet 45 Print and Publishing1 y que ofrece bilingüe (inglés/búlgaro) una nota de entrada de Thomas Waugh2 y un apreciable texto introductorio de Norge Espinosa.

Babak Salari nació en Shiraz, en 1959, pero se educó en Concordia University y Dawson College. Su especialidad –por llamarle de algún modo– es la fotografía documental en blanco y negro. Vive en Canadá hace más de veinte años; desde allí estudia y se adentra en las identidades diaspóricas y las marginalidades. Su trabajo mostrando los efectos de la ocupación en Irak sobre las mujeres y los niños, sus fotografías de refugiados palestinos, su documentación de la realidad afgana lo convierten en un activista cultural capaz de convivir con cualquier tensión social y hacer que sus imágenes devengan metáfora, encarnación y sustento de una filosofía de lo improrrogable.

Faces, Bodies, Personas… agrupa dos series de fotos. Abre páginas Bodies and Personas que, a su vez, deriva de la serie Queer at the Margins of Society donde se reúnen fotografías de gays y travestis de La Habana. Y a continuación puede ser vista Faces, colmada de retratos de escritores y artistas cubanos.

Thomas Waug se sorprende agradablemente de esta fusión, de este estar juntos, de este vis-à-vis: “And it is amazing how felicitously the two sub-groups come together”. Es la hermosa extrañeza que sacude a muchos espectadores. Es la hermosa y peligrosa extrañeza. El hecho de la sorpresa ya delata un engranaje que no va bien. Algo no encaja pero no en el muestrario de fotografías de Salari, sino en los espectadores.

No debería ser extraño, no debería resultar amazing, esta nueva posicionalidad de márgenes y cánones. Pero acostumbrados co-mo estamos a jerarquizaciones y exclusiones, ciertos equilibrios producen extrañeza. Babak Salari estabiliza, nivela, hace justicia. Vuelve visible lo relegado y sin exotismos ni publicidades retrata el rostro que está detrás de las máscaras. O la máscara que late casi a la par del rostro.

La piel limpia, recuperada después del agotamiento de los afeites, es lo que aquí se enseña. Lo que aún muchas veces es censurado y apedreado mira a la cámara, se deja ver. Es la marginalidad reflejada en el lente del también marginal iraní.

A ratos en una de las planas del libro irrumpen muchachos muy jóvenes de apetecibles labios deliciosamente afirmados que luego se desplazan para volver a mirar al lente desde la belleza femenina y sensual exhibida en la noche caribeña. Gays y travestis son fotografiados en la intimidad de su momento de maquillaje, en su acto puro de travestismo; en la intimidad de caricias sugeridas y torsos desnudos. Esa intimidad no está detenida en su último escalón porque aún puede hacerse pública y ser mostrada en estas fotos, deudoras del estilo documental y urbano de Diane Arbus y, en cierto modo, de la misma corriente que asistió a Walker Evans durante la Gran Depresión quien también realizó importantes fotos en Cuba en 1933, relacionadas con la revolución contra Gerardo Machado.

En el otro platillo de la balanza están los escritores y artistas bajados del Olimpo, desprendidos del canon. Igualados, ubicados en su justo lugar: junto a otros bodies y personas, Salari los devuelve como personas. Les reduce el aura de misterio y atractivo que proyectan desde sus libros, sus apariciones periódicas, sus premios importantes, sus sillas en academias y también –por qué no– les aligera la vida, liberándolos de tamañas y sacras responsabilidades emanadas de una existencia pública.

En este grupo aparecen artistas cuya elección no sabemos si fue dictada por el azar o es la resultante de un proceso de búsqueda que refleja la intencionalidad de estas imágenes. Lo cierto es que muchos de los rostros fotografiados arrastran consigo años de trabajo con, cerca o dentro de la marginalidad. Y reúnen en sí vidas que en momentos varios han fijado con profundidad una sostenida mirada sobre los cuerpos, el deseo y las identidades.

Los retratos que recomiendo muy especialmente pasan por mi relectura de coordenadas entrelazantes, no puedo hacerlo de otra manera. Así miro a Margarita Mateo y oigo en el silencio de su fotografía la confesión: “No sé de dónde sale esa vocación mía por lo marginal, por lo periférico. Lo cierto es que los ‘centros’ suelen aburrirme, lo establecido se me torna monótono, y muchas veces me siento más cómoda recorriendo los oscuros y recónditos caminos de Marginalia”.3

Antón Arrufat, elegante, de pie, con solo una zona del rostro iluminada por la luz que entra por una ventana parece asistir a la escritura de su propio texto “Torneo fiel”, delicado, tristísimo y contundente poema inscrito en la línea de la mejor poesía homoerótica cubana.

Éramos tan amantes que a veces éramos amigos. O éramos tan amigos que a veces nos amábamos./ Para añadir un nuevo anillo a nuestra unión, decidimos batirnos. Fuimos a escoger las armas: dos espadas iguales en tamaño y temple./ Nos preparamos desde el alba. Ajustados lorigas y yelmos, montamos a caballo y nos pusimos frente a frente./ Así estamos todavía./ Sin tiempo, encarnizados, inexorables, tratando de vencer de un tajo y para siempre al otro.4

Rocío García, por su parte, aparece sentada en el suelo. A su izquierda hay una puerta cerrada donde con lápiz, creyón fino o bolígrafo ha sido escrito: “La fiera. El animal”. Esta pintora, mordaz en su arte, saca a relucir profundos conflictos del imaginario masculino. Sus hombres, machos, marineros, domadores (suerte de personajes de su pintura) saltan de la marginalidad y la periferia, instalándose en los predios del poder que durante siglos ha correspondido a la postura heterosexual. Marineros de arma blanca, jugadores de cartas reunidos en el bar, dueños de armas de fuego, jefes militares, pelotones del ejército son sus claves. El voyeur, el castigador, la belleza del dolor y el dolor de la belleza; las teorías y las masturbaciones; el espejo y la máscara; la densidad de la tradición y la desintoxicación de esa misma densidad; la violencia y la represión; la intimidación; el poder, el minuto de gloria, los trueques de identidades son los temas marginales que despliegan la obra de esta creadora y que son, sin lugar a dudas, la música de fondo de su rostro fotografiado por Babak Salari.

Norge Espinosa, autor del estudio introductorio también fue retratado. Ser juez y parte no le nubla el entendimiento para valorar en su más preciada esencia –y dotado de imparcialidad– estas fotografías. Espinosa traza un interesante recorrido por diferentes momentos del tratamiento a la homosexualidad en Cuba. Ensaya un fugaz (porque el espacio no permite más) pero aportador bosquejo sobre la incidencia/presencia de la homosexualidad en la cultura cubana hasta llegar a la visibilidad que aportó el filme Fresa y Chocolate y la significación real de El Mejunje, espacio multicultural creado y defendido por Ramón Silverio en la ciudad de Santa Clara. Espinosa también ha cubierto con su obra una ruta dentro de la marginalidad. Autor, siendo muy joven, del antológico poema “Vestido de novia”, es absolutamente consciente de que ese texto conforma una de las regiones más visibles de su obra:

Con qué espejos/ con qué ojos/ va a mirarse este muchacho de manos azules./ Con qué sombrilla va a atreverse a cruzar el aguacero/ y la senda del barco hacia la luna./ Cómo va a poder./ Cómo va a poder así vestido de novia/ si vacío de senos está su corazón/ si no tiene las uñas pintadas/ si tiene sólo un abanico de libélulas.

Siguiendo este rumbo, habría que detenerse también en otros rostros retratados talentosamente por Salari, a los cuales insisto –una vez más– acercarse no como a fotografías de variable independiente sino a partir de la vinculación de aquellas con las latitudes de la obra de cada quien. De René Peña, se muestra una excelente foto cargada de una gran fuerza expresiva. Sus marginales series: Man made materials, de 1999 y White things conforman con su rostro retratado un todo circulando que apunta hacia la búsqueda del cuerpo negro, la indagación en el santuario de la piel negra de este importante artista cubano.

El investigador Tomás Fernández Robaina (fotografiado también en Faces, Bodies, Personas…) ha escrito El negro en Cuba 1902-1958, es un estudioso de la obra de Nicolás Guillén y tiene como preocupación la constante del movimiento y pensamiento negro en Cuba. Una vez más el enlace se efectúa, el broche cierra la capa.

Apenas he querido detenerme en lo que creo son uniones tácitas entre las dos series de fotografías y que conforman una consolidada poética de la imagen como generadora y articuladora de realidades. Algo más une ambas series: la mirada sobre el fondo, sobre el entorno. Ejemplo de ello es el solar habanero que conforma el telón detrás de Jorge Ángel Pérez, talentoso escritor cuyo ejercicio narrativo se ahonda en diferentes aristas del cuerpo y la marginalidad. El entorno, la cotidianidad de la épica cubana circundante, acercan aún más las partes de este conjunto fotográfico documental. Pero también algo separa las series mencionadas. En la mayoría de las fotos de gays y travestis, éstos se guardan entre sí o son su propia escolta ante un espejo de dos lados que muestra una imagen escindida o acompañada por sí misma en la conjunción de ambas caras. Sin embargo, los escritores, los artistas, aparecen siempre e invariablemente a solas, convertidos en marginales solitarios, dedicados al extraño arte del corredor de fondo y a su sempiterno aislamiento desterrador.

De cualquier modo, rostros solos o acompañados son fotografías de cuerpos que viven, mueren, se renuevan, pierden la piel en la carrera para regenerarse posteriormente en la Cuba de hoy. Fragmentos de una nación que Babak Salari reunió para mostrar la diversidad y la mezcla, las variables y la permanencia. Son los cuerpos de la resistencia, los sobrevivientes de muchas crisis. Son lo que con tanto acierto Norge Espinosa definió: “la única posesión real, que sin pudores se deja ver, mira a la cámara y se ofrece”.

Faces, Bodies, Personas. Tracing Cuban Stories: Photografs by Babak Salari, text by Norge Espinosa, Janet 45 Print and Publishing, Montreal, Canadá, 2008.

In a fast paced world with media focussed on single, dramatic images there is the danger that extended documentary work like that of Babak Salari’s may be missed in the rush for the next great cover shot. Salari’s photographs, by contrast, require us to slow down and savour the moments he has rendered on film. Like any story, the best way to experience “Remembering the People of Afghanistan” is to be conscious of the telling and willing to let ourselves be affected by it. Salari’s photos form a rich, complex story told in a soft voice. It is the story of a people recounted with empathy and respect. At times, it is also autobiographical as Salari appears to relive moments and spaces of his own exile in the lives of those in front of his camera.

The story here is narrated in quiet silvery tones, bold heavy shadows, in the rhythm of repeating forms and faces, in telling layers, dusty floors, in the eyes of children and adults, in the turn of a person’s hand. Salari captures these elements with his typical understatement; done with such sleight-of-hand, we must be attentive, even revisit images to fully appreciate them.

Some pictures are tapestries of information with multiple focal points. The market scene in Kandahar (pages 152-153) is a photograph that I have returned to several times. Salari has timed and framed the photo so that its nine primary figures are connected by a subliminal resonance, one that ties them to each other and forms the compositional fabric of the photograph. Despite their interconnectedness, each of these elements suggests a unique story: the upturned toes in the shade of the parasol; the men finalizing a transaction; the women in burquas crossing the frame, one heavyset, the other slight; the tented profile overlooking the street; the shadow occupied by a man who has noticed the photographer; the youth sitting against the shade on the wall; the passer-by with a folded blanket on his shoulder; the dark opening punctuated by a white hat and clothes. These protagonists lead us through the image, a single story.

Khandehar old market

In reality, the subjects were at various depths in the scene and Salari has contained, frozen, flattened and connected them in a two-dimensional space. The figures are spread across a flat plane in a considered, aesthetic pattern: the sweeping hand of the man with the blanket now almost brushes the parasol of the man with the upturned toes. Yet Salari keeps this transformation discreet. He chooses to remain faithful to the original scene, chooses not to draw attention to himself or the photographic process.

Hands play an integral role in this collection. Salari consistently incorporates them: look for them in portraits, in gestures, at the edges of a frame. Salari is conscious of how they complement faces and expressions, and is careful to include them and the insight they offer. In the makeshift cemetery (pages 16-17), the rigid hands that break through the burial shroud are contrasted with the supple forms of the hands attending the dead.

Body of border crossing

To appreciate the skill and eloquence of Salari’s photography is to appreciate his telling of the story. But Babak specifically invites us to look beyond the language of his photography to the story itself, the people. We are invited to connect with the Afghans, witness them as actual people instead of the generic background figures that populate daily news clips. These pictures are intimate and personal, open. They show us the character, dignity and strength of civilian Afghans who live, play, work and study in a dire physical and political landscape. These pictures motivate.

David Hopkins

Department of Professional Photography

Dawson College

David Hopkins is the former chair of the Department of Professional Photography at Dawson College. He has been an active teacher for over thirty years and is a recipient of the college’s Director General’s Award for Teaching Excellence. He has written numerous articles for magazines in Canada and the United States and maintains an extensive blog dedicated to photography and education in photography.

© Babak Salari, My Street Cuban Stories

FROM SHIRAZ TO HAVANA

- 1 -

FLASH BACK: NOSTALGIA

Tomorrow, February 11^th, is the 31^st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Since 1979, I have been travelling and living in many streets, in many places around the world, including my own city, Shiraz, the City of Secrets. Since leaving Iran, and not counting my eventual immigration to Canada, I’ve moved almost 27 times and I’ve been questioned, over and over again, about my idea of home, displacement, and the emotional effects of being far from the place I used to belong.

It is difficult to give an image, I’ve discovered, to an idea as complicated as the idea of “home”. I have stayed in various streets in many countries but still I have a hard time saying: This one is mine. I still cannot figure out a place of my own where I don’t fear being abandoned by society. Yet, in spite of this feeling, I’ve enjoyed every single moment of my life anywhere I’ve found myself up to this moment.

In September and December, 2009, I flew with the Bulgarian journalist, Diana Ivanova, to Cuba to start the project My Street. Both of us were amazed by the lively interest of the Cuban participants in our proposal, and by their willingness to tell us about the street in which they live. And I have to admit that my involvement in their views, histories and stories stirred up memories that had been buried inside of me for a long time.

Travelling with Ms. Ivanova and our assistant, Ulises Quinta de Armas, from La Havana all the way to Santiago de Cuba gave me the chance to take part in a series of workshops with local people and to hear their very personal stories. We asked each person to describe the street they live on, and to describe it to someone – like us – who had never been there before. Their writings could be about buildings, neighbours, shapes, colours, recollections… Each member of the project was also given a digital camera. We asked them to take 10 to 15 photos that could illustrate their respective stories.

Each group, consisting of no more than five people, returned later on to read their narratives to each another. The idea of my street turned out to be, for the Cubans, an easily accessible topic. The street was a micro-model of the larger society that they had in common, regardless of their external differences. By reading, listening and discovering common points, a space for mutual understanding, questioning and curiosity opened up before us.

“My street is a mirror where nobody wants to see himself, fearful of finding an ugly face,” one participant says in his contribution. Ulises Quinta de Armas (“A Box of Memories Nobody Opens”) remembers the journeys, hopes and sorrows of several generations of his family, and these memories serve to link the street to his history and identity. This strong sense of belonging, of nostalgia even, in Ulises’ account proved to be a common feeling in many of the micro-histories we brought together in Cuba.

- 2 -

FLASH FORWARD: MY STREET

I spent many hours contemplating the stories and photos that the participants so generously created. And all the time I was thinking about what the metaphor of a street actually is—about its role in stimulating intelligent questions in any society, and in gathering these questions into a whole. A street allows us to consider collective memory in addition to individual memories. It becomes a choir where each individual voice contains its own qualities and power…

Tomorrow, millions of people with different views and backgrounds will celebrate, in the streets, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. But I will be thinking about a street that has been completely lost in the events of history.

Ever since 1982, I travelled the world and desperately, right or wrong, couldn’t find a place that I would call home. Thirty one years later, in the crystallized memories that this Cuban experience awoke in me, I saw a forgotten street that was, and still is, a very important part of my family’s life. I hadn’t been there in decades.

My street was about one hundred meters long, muddy in both winter and spring, unpleasant for children to play on. My street, or – as we’d say in Persian – kocheh, consisted of four houses only, and it lay at the outskirts of a small village two hours from the city of Shiraz, in the south of Iran. The village was surrounded by mountains, oaks and wild almond trees, and a river that ran dry at the beginning of autumn. Our house, a big one with a huge wooden gate, sat in front of a garden that belonged to our relatives. This was a favourite spot for me and my three brothers, the place where we enjoyed pomegranates all summer long…

Now I am going through a box of things which I carry around with me, a box full of precious photos from my family album. In a snapshot, I see myself, three other young men, and somebody’s hand that is coming into the frame. The hand belongs to Abbas, my cousin, who was few years younger than us. In the background of the photo (taken by a Russian camera), are the mountains and wild, blossoming almond trees. The photo was taken in spring, the best time of year for celebrating. And indeed, we were celebrating, with our new clothes and our best smiles: March 21^st is Nooroz (“new day” in Persian, and the start of the New Year for Iran, Afghanistan, Kurdistan and Tajikistan).

One of the boys in the photo is my younger brother Hadi. Back then, he was a gifted kid. Today, he is no longer here. On January 1^st, 1982, my father buried him in the graveyard behind our house, the big house where we were born and raised. Today, my father, too, is gone. I was able to visit Hadi’s grave four long days after he was buried. I, too, am no longer there.

I always think of my brother as being like a butterfly who never dies. Now these crystallized memories, thousands of kilometres away, are coming back to me. On the 31^st anniversary of 1979, I would like to pay a visit to my brother. He has been waiting for so many years in a grave only two minutes from the big house on the street that was once ours.

Babak Salari

Sofia, February 10, 2010

From  Book: My Street Cuban Stories, By Babak Salari And Diana Ivanova

©Babak Salari, Traumas and Miracles

For, when we will no longer exist, nobody will be able to testify on our behalf. There will be nothing left but the indifferent nature.(Roland Barthes, La camera lucida)

The great authenticity of Babak Salari’s photographic work derives from his experiential contemplation of human existence in exile – a human existence violently deported or simply living on the margins of the society. The charm of his pictures, however, stems from their narrative power, from the way they reflect in black and white stories difficult to tell without evoking a strong emotional charge.

The wandering of the self-exiled artist at places traumatized by the war, goes far beyond the simple testimony of a documentary photographer. His clear and penetrating gaze, acts as a mirror, and reveals aspects of the portrayed faces that he looks upon; it reveals wounds and fragments of their identity. The sense of a primordial realism, intimate and humanistic runs through the artist’s photographic corpus dispersed in a wider anthropogeographical map. From war victims in Afghanistan and Iraq to the uprooted people of Palestine and from the matriarchal communities in Mexico to the gay communities of Cuba, Salari is searching underneath the surface for the real face, and tries to reveal for us the unsaid, albeit discreetly. More than this he activates memories.

In the book “Traumas and Miracles: Portraits from Northwestern Bulgaria”, published by the Bulgarian publishing house Janet 45, with Babak Salari’s photographs and Diana Ivanova’s texts, the reader has the possibility to experience a sample of his new artistic project, which was also presented on Aug 2010 in the National Gallery of Sofia. This naturalized Canadian of Iranian origin, while moving away from his previous themes, has remained faithful to his deeply humanistic spirit. He has travelled along with the journalist and writer Diana Ivanova to the birthplace of the latter, a place traumatized by consecutive political and economic crises in the postwar era. This particular photographic work, consisting of more than 2000 black and white photographs, is the fruit of a series of meetings and interviews with some of the remaining dwellers in the area. In one of the poorest spots in Europe, faces aged by the ravages of time and history, “are offered” in front of Salaris’s camera in the most silent and unaffectedly touching way. Gazes and bodies, spaces and objects are presented in a state of loneliness and abandonment, loss and frustration.
In the published book the accompanying brief texts beside selected photographs, illuminate for us the life of the persons contained within them, sometimes via simple comments and at other times through the voices of the subjects, which touch us especially in terms of their simplicity and truth. Finally the dialogue between the two contributors and Ivanova’s introductory text clarify for us the motivation that led them to the concept of this specific project.

The faces

People of nine villages in Northwestern Bulgaria fill the camera lens of Salari. Female migration has exacerbated the depleted populations of these already ageing populations. These are places that carry the wounds of past with them, intensively. Under the burden of sweeping political and social change these forgotten “last guardians”, as Ivanova calls them, are filled with memories deprived of any kind of nostalgia while at the same time they witness a cruel reality: the gradual devastation of their villages and the end of an era.
In the “Portraits from Northwestern Bulgaria” the biographical element meets the psychographic one in a unique way. In every image we find human stories, and each story is a reflection that traces the trauma and afflictions of the persons contained within. Their gaze, an element expressed in previous works of the artist, reveals important aspects of their character. Additionally the tightened lips, the neck, the hands and the body posture are the detail that completes their substance and helps us to understand them better.
Salari as a visual poet shares with us the faces he shoots and their own depth. But his look here obtains a more intense sadness. A memory of life and even a suspicion of death run over most of his photographs. If poverty and material decay augur a certain death, it is the bright shadow of these bodies that makes them magnificent: the particular aura which accompanies these bodies in the various shades of grey reflects signs of a different kind, such as obstinacy and dignity, submission and abandonment, desolation and uncertainty. Most of all, we hear their deafening loneliness.

The places

In this series the scenic mastery of the photographer seems more mature than ever. The pictures of the faces have been shot in their natural environment, in house interiors, and even in yards or streets. Sometimes the scenery is even more minimal, a plain wall, a staircase, a window. In any case it is all about a standing place, which is filled with human absenceand memories. A place of silence, desolation and decay, where even life seems frozen in the time. Interestingly, in some photographs we can sense a kind of sociability, there is a yearning to heal and console at the same time.

The stories

As with Salari’s previous photographic series, the people narrate their own shocking stories. Faces worn down by hard labour have survived the collapse of two political systems, economic collapse and political crisis. The history is reflected in their bodies as a palimpsest of traumatical experiences: the ideological denial, the poverty, the migration, the gradual devastation and the end of their villages. On the other hand they hold a faith towards the mysteries of life that derives from an old tradition. Babak Salari’s photographs in dialogue with Diana Ivanova’s texts map the memories of both the individual and the collective, the frustration but also the hope of a society that is gradually approaching closure.

A world so close to us

According to Roland Barthes “a photograph is subversive not when stimulating or stigmatizing but when reflective… when it makes you reflect on life, death, or on the merciless extinction of the generations”. In these few inhabitants of Northwestern Bulgaria we can recognize the signs of a society familiar to us, of a gradually shrinking society as evidenced by many Greek villages every time we visit them. Such visits make us feel some temporary euphoria, but such visits also give us an identical lump in our throats and the same feelings of melancholy. The only difference is that in Babak Salari’s photographs we experience these signs in a more captivating way; the faces that stand before us, despite the feelings of tenderness and love that emerge from within, hold deep inside the scar of History.

Translation from Greek by: Domna Iordanidou
Special thanks to Sevastiana Mikrouli, and Anthony Montgomery

Kalliopi Poutouroglou is a film critic for the web magazine, Cinephilia.gr, and teacher of Greek language in Greece and abroad.

Last week, I had the chance to sit down with Babak Salari, a very talented photographer and a very dear friend of mine, to talk about his Afghanistan project, which has recently been published by Janet 45.

The first book launch for Remembering the People of Afghanistan, will be May 1st at 7:00 pm at Gallery Mekic in Montreal. If you are around go check it out.

©Babak Salari

Babak Salari, native of Iran, is a Montreal based photographer and educator who chronicles lives at the margins of society. At the age of twenty-one, his political activities resulted in his imprisonment for six months by the Khomeini regime (in Iran). Upon his temporary release from jail, he fled to Pakistan and, a year later, arrived in Canada where he resumed his study and practice of photography.

What year were you in Afghanistan? And how long where you there?
I went to Afghanistan in 2002, just a few months after the invasion. And I was there for 2 months.

Why did you go to Afghanistan? Was it for a specific project?
It was an assignment for Medecins du Monde Canada. They wanted me to document their medical aid in Afghanistan. But I also had my own personal reasons for going.

What was the project with Medecins du Monde for?
Medecins du Monde wanted documentation of their mobile clinics and where they were active. I decided to also include the refugee camps as a whole for this project. They did not ask for it, but the people who are in the refugees are Afghans. They call them internally displaced people. Those camps were or possibly could be patients of Medecins du Monde, so I documented that as well.

Did you find it easy to photograph?
While working in the refugee camps, I had some assistance fromRAWA (Revolutionary Afghan Women Association). Working with RAWA was easy to have access to camps, schools, clinics and the surroundings areas. I always had somebody from the organization with me and being with Medecins du Monde also helped a lot to have access to the people. There is also a tie with Afghans and Iranians, I consider Afghanistan part of my own culture and background. A long time ago we were the same nation. I speak the language so that helped to communicate with the people there. It was not that difficult and I felt comfortable with the people.

Was RAWA part of the project with Medecins du Monde?
No, there was no connection. I decided to document the refugee camps, so I asked RAWA to help me and they did.

©Babak Salari

How did the people receive you? and if you went back now, do you think it would be the same?
They received me very well. They were genuinely very helpful and receiving and so warm. I never got so much attention, it was great. Afghan people, despite the fact of war for the last few decades, they are extremely generous and kind. If I went back now, I think it would probably be the same.

What did you want to show with your project, what did you want your images to show?
I wanted to show the reality. I wanted to go beyond showing Afghanistan as a misery and poverty stricken land with war, disaster and destruction. I wanted to show, despite all those things, that people are fighting to live and lead a normal life and that they are proud. I did not want this project to objectify the Afghan people for the need of mass media or news. Basically this project was to raise questions and to show different elements of life in a war torn country.

Do you think the media is hurting the Afghan people?
They do not reflect the reality of the war and they do not reflect what is exactly happening there. There is a double standard. They do not concentrate on the main issue like: Why is this war on? What is the issue of the power there? You know in mass media, we hardly have the real news. Did you know that in 2007 while we spent billions and billions of dollars for military in Afghanistan, 2000 people died of hunger? But that wasn’t an important fact for the news networks. Also the whole issue of the reconstruction of Afghanistan, nobody is talking about one of the main reasons NATO allies invaded Afghanistan. What happened to the re-construction of Afghanistan? How many jobs did they create? How much money did they spend on the real reasons for entering into Afghanistan? I think the media only talks or writes about the issues that people want to hear.

At the end of your book, you’ve written a couple of pages about Afghanistan and your project. There are stories which you write about the horror and events that happened to some of the people you met. Knowing those stories and seeing the poverty and the misery, how did you keep going? What drove you to keep shooting and to keep documenting?
It was much easier at the beginning of the project. But at one point, I think it got to my soul and I couldn’t continue. It was at that point that I felt there was a limitation with my medium (photography) and my ability as a photographer. I couldn’t answer those needs, epically being able to communicate directly with the people, without anybody translating, it was affecting me really, really hard.

©Babak Salari

©Babak Salari

Would you go back today?
I would like to go back but I don’t think I could do it as easily as I did 7 years ago. Sure I would like to back and see the country again but I don’t know if I can go back now.

You said at the beginning of our conversation that part of this project was for personal reasons. Can you share those reasons?
Well, Afghanistan borders Iran and I think there was a need after 20 years of being in the west to get closer to home. I consider Montreal home but I felt that there was something that was calling me. I think that this was a reconciliation between me and my first home. I was very close to the borders of Iran but yet I was so far because I couldn’t go back to the country because of my political exile. What was really nice is that I was able to see my parents. They came and stayed with me in Afghanistan. This way a very big turning point in my life, because of my parents visit I felt that I was home. With all these emotional events, it was important to make Afghanistan a very personal project.

This was the last time Babak was to see or talk to his father. He passed away a couple years after their meeting. Remembering the People of Afghanistan is dedicated to his father and his family.

You were a political activist. Now, your work continues to focus on the rights of people at the margins and the turmoil of today’s society. So are you a lover or a fighter?
I could say I am a fighter but that’s just because I have lots of love in my heart for the things that I fight for.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a book, which is a new project, with writer, journalist, cultural activist, Diana Ivanova from Bulgaria. The project is a look at the north-west part of Bulgaria, a kind of portrait of transformation from old system to new system. I also am working on a very personal project called the Colour of my Dreams.

©Babak Salari

Janet 45 is a Bulgarian based publishing house. So how has the book been received in Canada and in Eastern Europe?
The book has been published less than a month ago, so it hasn’t been distributed in Canada yet. In Bulgaria they have already started to talk about the book and there has been some interviews. This is not an exotic book, it’s very specific in theme so we’ll have to see what happens.

Are there any travels or exhibits for the book in the near future?
I’m leaving soon to go back to Bulgaria, there will be a couple of book launches in May and June. The book will also be in the Balkan book fair in October and the closet event is a book launch in Montreal May 1st.

— by Aislinn Leggett on April 30, 2009. Filed under Black & White, Interview

©Babak Salari, My Street Cuban Stories

Mi calle. Historias cubanas. Diana Ivanova and Babak Salari, (Eds.) Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Janet 45 Ltd, 2010. 147 pp, notes and photographs. $12.00 paperback (ISBN 978-954-491-605-3)

Mi calle is a part of a multinational book project that began in Bulgaria in 2006 by Diana Ivanova and Boris Deliradev. Initially supported by the British Council of Bulgaria, the concept was part of a broader endeavor, “The European Union and Me,” which culminated with a book publication and a traveling exhibition. Mi calle was carried out by the editors, Bulgarian writer and journalist-anthropologist Diana Ivanova, and the Canadian-Iranian photographer, Babak Salari. Both ‘authors’ (though technically they are editors) traveled to Cuba in 2009 where they met, mainly through key informants, mostly young people in Havana, San José de las Lajas, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Holguín, Gibara and Santiago de Cuba. They asked fifty-two residents to write about their streets and neighborhoods and to take photographs of them as well. (More information about the methodology of the project can be had at their website, http://www.my-street.org/

Readers will immediately recognize this and related participatory projects in which ‘locals’ are asked by ‘outsiders’ to share knowledge with a larger community in the form of short stories, poems, photographs, oral histories, and related forms of testimony and witness. Mi calle presents them in their original Spanish, though Bulgarian and English versions of the work are also available at the website noted above.

The topics covered in these short essays include tales of pleasant and nosey neighbors, songs and smells that punctuate the streetscape as strongly as the tropical sun, the look of the street, familiar landmarks that stand as silent witnesses to the passing of time, reflections of where intimate moments occurred, and other facets of daily living (la vida cotidiana). It is the sort of humanist and cultural geographies that appear to have faded away under the post-modernist gaze.

To the authors’ credit, this is no political whitewashing of a country that is often overly romanticized. Writer Betsy Diaz, 15, from Centro Habana, mentions the nearly ubiquitous presence of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). Mayte Cueto from Arroyo Naranjo describes the importance of Afro-Cuban religions as a prelude to her 70-year old neighbor, Carmelina. And Alexis Alvarez, 28, from San José de las Lajas remarks on the apolitical aura of his neighborhood: “Mi barrio es tranquilo y cada vecino es peculiar. No se hacen guardias cederistas [CDR neighborhood-watch duty], no se celebran festividades de comité y eso me gusta” (91). The use of metaphor is refreshing, and story number 37, Amor sin condón, reflects the creative play on words when the reader least expects it.

Mi calle suggests numerous possibilities for Latinamericanists concerned about place attachment, vernacular landscape, and local expression. Readers with just a few years of high-school Spanish and a pocket dictionary can make their way through these pages. It would make for a wonderful companion for anyone traveling through the island since each historia carries a title, the author’s name and age, and his or her street address
210 Journal of Latin American Geography

and town name. Why not visit them, get their autograph, and engage them? The book would lend itself nicely to a class with students who would be interested in what other young people think and write about the island. It would also serve as a model for a field course in any city, town, or hamlet in Latin America and the Caribbean. This refreshing genre of travel and sightseeing in such a high-tech age has seen an upsurge in recent years. Lending the locals’ disposable cameras is also a strong complement to the texts, and Mi Calle is laced with color photographs on every other page, most by locals, and some by co-author Salari who is trained as professional photographer and documentary filmmaker.
Tales of longing and stories of wanting and melancholy make Mi calle a delightful portal to the human condition in Cuba. The book offers inductive, ethnographic insights into a world few of us can imagine. Testimonies like these will underscore many of the reasons field researchers chose their line of inquiry in the first place. For some readers, it will provide respite in a nomothetic world characterized by SOCIAL THEORY in capital letters, while avoiding the pitfalls of idiographic research. As the subtitle of the work portends, there are many stories and many histories to these places, and Ivanova and Salari provide an intriguing window to fifty-two of them. Academicians searching for a reason to conduct prolonged study-abroad courses might use this as a service-learning model where the foreign participants share tales of their own streets. Imagine the possibilities.

Joseph L. Scarpaci
The Havana Consulting Group
Blacksburg, Virginia

Mi calle. Historias cubanas (review)
Journal of Latin American Geography – Volume 10, Number 1, 2011, pp. 209-210

November 6th, 2008 Cultural Crossroads: Babak Salari – Web exclusive! http://www.hour.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=15986 Write a comment on this article ! Read members’ comments [3

New bent on the Cuban revolution
Stefan Christoff

Salari: All smiles photo: Peter Berra

Montreal is a vibrant international center for artistic expression and culture production. Cultural Crossroads is a new interview series on hour.ca that features in depth conversations with Montreal's leading artists and cultural actors, all who of whom are inspiring new and innovative forms of artistic expression and thinking here and around the world.
Cultural Crossroads interviews Iranian-born Montrealer Babak Salari on his new book of photography about Cuba's queer artistic scenes

Representations of Cuban culture internationally are often turned into symbols or clichés of a post-revolutionary society. Images of Cuba's revolutionary era adorn t-shirts, websites and apartment walls around the world. But seldom are the contemporary voices from the social and cultural edges of Cuba featured.

Montreal photographer Babak Salari has recently published a book on queer culture in Cuba, which directly explores the new modes of social dissent within Cuban society as expressed by queer artists and intellectuals, communities historically marginalized in Cuba. Salari's book Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories not only offers striking photography, but is also documents the complexities of queer identity in Cuba within Cuban elite cultural milieus and at a popular level.

As the fiftieth anniversary of Cuba's revolution approaches, Babak Salari's book is an extremely important document on Cuban society today, recorded by a world class photographer who has documented the lives of the oppressed in multiple corners of the world - the Middle, East Asia and Latin America.

Here Hour journalist Stefan Christoff speaks with Salari concerning his most recently published work for our monthly online in-depth interview series, Cultural Crossroads.

Hour In the opening commentary for the book, your portraits are presented as a documentation of life on the edges of Cuban society - a revolutionary society - can you expand on this point?

Babak Salari A focal point

for my photography is those who are marginalized: those impacted by war, those forced into exile and also minorities in any society living without full rights.

The project in Cuba was based on exploring the margins of society. It began in 2001, focusing on the most marginalized queers in Cuba - people who never have a chance to talk. The second part in the book is focused on queer artists who are expressing themselves in Cuba.

For many years queer artists represented a taboo culture in Cuba, as queers generally couldn't express themselves openly but queer artists were celebrated - a major social contradiction. Bringing together these two realities was a goal for the book, a project highlighting both the queer community of Cuba generally, but also specifically highlighting queer Cuban artists and intellectuals.

A key goal for the entire project and those Cuban artists collaborating on the project, including poet Jorge Espinosa Mendoza and writer Roberto Zurbano Torres, was to bring these two realities, these two distinct queer experiences in Cuba, together within the same cover.

Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories, by Babak Salari (Havana, Cuba 2001)

Many queer Cuban artists have gained national attention and can express themselves through their art, although their sexuality remained taboo, remained in the closet.

Hour Portraits in the book are very intimate; the photos seem to capture the moments between the private world and the public world for queers in Cuba. Can you talk about that experience, interacting, mapping and photographing these moments in Cuba?

Salari After spending two years in Cuba, people allowed me access to their daily experiences, their daily lives. It took time to gain this trust given my status in Cuba as an outsider.

Photos in the book capture the human moments of queers in Cuba, both the public and private moments, attempting to portray extremely complex identities.

Hour Today, there is growing international recognition of art produced in Cuba. In Montreal this past year at the Musée des beaux-arts featured a major exhibition focusing on Cuban art, featuring revolutionary imagery that continues to serve as an inspiration for many on the left internationally. What are your thoughts on the role of contemporary art in Cuban society, as compared to classic Cuban revolutionary art? Can you address how your photography addresses that artistic intersection between contemporary dissent in Cuban society and art's historical role as a revolutionary force in Cuba?

Babak Salari My photography on Cuba explores the parts of society that are hidden. Many understand Cuba in clichés, which are reinforced through activities on most tourist trips to the country. However, my work touches on the more subtle, unknown elements in Cuban society, powerful elements of current Cuban culture not widely known.

Cuba is so often defined through cliché imagery: Che Guvera emblems, or revolutionary imagery, or Salsa dancing - all which are important to Cuban society, but Cuba is home to much more complexity.

Today queer culture in Cuba is recognized but not always openly, like within the work of nationally celebrated artists like theatre director Carlos Díaz. Such artists represent new changes taking place within Cuba, as part of an internal struggle for change. It is through modern Cuban dance, literature and art that you can best learn about new social modes within Cuba.

Cuban society felt familiar to me as an Iranian who also experienced revolution. In Iran, many people, especially artists and revolutionaries, are very familiar with Cuban politics and culture - but not the contemporary complexities that we are discussing, especially not queer culture.

Hour One understanding of change in Cuba, common in North America, is defined by the country's transfer to a free market economy. Creating a 'free market' economy certainly isn't the only possible framework for post-revolutionary change in Cuba. Through your photography, you can feel the tensions within many Cuban artistic circles on the different possibilities for change in Cuba, can you address these complexities?

Salari In discussing these issues with Cuban artists and intellectuals it is apparent that change in Cuba is constant, it is ongoing. Artists featured in the book, operating within the social circles in Cuba that are familiar to me, are all pushing for indigenous ideas for change; for change to take place from within Cuban society.

As someone from Iran who has experienced exile for a quarter of a century, the current issues being addressed in Cuba are familiar to me in a way. Many Cubans featured in the book also explored possibilities of leaving Cuba and trying to push for change in exile. However, those featured in the book choose to stay, to push for change from within, which is an important current to the book.

My own experience of exile has defined my life and also my relationship to Iran, so these questions had a special resonance to my own experience.

Traces of change are apparent in Cuba today. Many artists express themselves by pushing against social barriers, queer artists especially. In contradiction to that internal process of change in Cuba is the U.S.-driven change which aims to impose a capitalist market society in Cuba, modeled after the U.S., which obviously will only increase social inequities.

In Cuba there is free medical care, easily accessible across the country for all, while in the U.S. many die because of lack of medical treatment. So it is clear why many in Cuba struggling for change also oppose the possibility of a "U.S.-modeled change" being imposed on Cuba. For real change to happen in Cuba it is critical to support those fighting for positive change within Cuban society. [Real] change is not about breaking open Cuban markets to U.S. investments, or trying to turn Cuba into a giant American casino.

Cuba is very complex; there are many races in Cuba, many different cultures and origins. It is very interesting to view and try to document this process of change taking place within Cuba, a process not apparent to most looking at Cuba from the outside.

Hour How did your own experiences with revolution and revolutionary culture in Iran shape your photographic work and experiences in Cuba?

Salari In Iran, many from my generation are familiar with the Cuban revolution and were influenced by Cuban revolutionary culture. Iran has experienced an entirely different history, has a very different culture and different traditions, still, many in Iran closely followed Cuba.

Many in Iran are very supportive towards the Cuban revolution. After experiencing exile from Iran, exile from a revolution, my thoughts on Cuba became more critical and complex. It is from this point on that my interest in exploring the edges of Cuban society developed.

In Cuba, it was striking to see reflections of my own background and past experiences within revolutionary Iran. Experiences in Iran lead me to ask more complicated questions concerning present day Cuba, leading me to explore the margins of Cuban society, a process that finally lead to the photography book.

Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories (Janet 45 Press, $30)
For more info, visit printing.janet45.com
For Babak Salari’s website, see www.babaksalari.com

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2008/032708/news2.html

>>Montreal photographer Babak Salari
captures a gay subculture

by MATTHEW HAYS

Babak Salari says that the more time he spent in Cuba, the more powerful the connection felt. Salari, a Montreal-based photographer, began to travel to Cuba over seven years ago, both for pleasure and to capture images. But as his research grew, Salari, an Iranian-born refugee who fled the country in 1982, could intuit the strong connection between Cuban and Iranian cultures.

“Iranian culture is a homophobic one,” says the 48-year-old. “The president there denies everything. I felt very personally connected to the culture in Cuba. This subculture is largely one you don’t see in Cuba. I felt this very strong parallel between the two communities.”

Thus Salari became more and more drawn in by his subjects, almost 100 of which are printed in his new book, Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories (Janet 45 Press, $30). With a powerful forthrightness and simplicity, Salari captures the lives of gays, lesbians and the transgendered in Cuba. Cast in stunning black and white, the images are clearly empowering for the subjects, presented without any hint of apology. Salari, an experienced photographer who has also documented the lives of Afghans, indicates a respect for his subjects that makes his photos feel less voyeuristic and more celebratory as a result. And he does what outstanding photographers can do, when faced with the lives of the marginalized: he makes that which has been rendered invisible visible.

“When I first went there, I was familiar with the politics of the Cuban government,” he recalls. “But I was not so familiar with the gay community there. My information was really very limited—I had seen Before Night Falls [the 2000 film about a gay artist who flees Cuba] but not much more than that.”

But as Salari spent more time there, he would meet up with one or two gay Cubans, and this would prove a crucial starting point to his introduction to the entire community. From there, he would be introduced to more queer Cubans and would gain trust, allowing for his photography to begin.

NO APOLOGIES: Images of gay cuba (above and top)

Cultural divide

Salari says he saw a divide in the Cuban queer community. He perceives that life is much easier for gays if they’re part of the intelligentsia. A number of artists, writers and intellectuals work quite openly there as queer people, though there are still obvious restrictions in terms of government censorship. “I know a theater director there, who works frequently, and everyone goes to see his shows. Everyone knows he’s gay, it’s not an issue for him. He gets respect. As well, I know a lesbian artist who explores her sexuality in her work. But if you’re a sex worker, it’s a different story. I wanted to bring both of these worlds together in the photographs.”

Salari managed to get this series of photos exhibited in Havana, at a gallery. He says it was well received but, not surprisingly, there was little or no press coverage around it.

While a number of gay Cubans have emigrated to Canada, Salari says things are changing there. “Since 2001, I sense a shift in attitudes there. I think things have opened up a bit.” He also argues that Cuban culture itself is unique in the Latino world: “Cuban culture is a mix of Latino, African and a revolutionary culture. It really is quite different from, say, Mexican culture.” This, he says, makes it an especially rich place for an artist to explore.

Salari also says that Cuban drag culture is also quite vibrant—if underground. “Drag shows are held privately, but are big—as many as 500 people will show up. The police know about them, of course, but they’re kept quiet.”

Salari was especially happy about one transsexual he convinced to participate. “She was quite discreet about it, but I managed to get her to open up and we developed a friendship. I invited her to the show in Havana. She blossomed as being a part of the show. She opened up, talking about how difficult it was for her to come out, to go through the process of being herself. This was one of the best stories to come out of the book.”

The launch of Faces, Bodies,
Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories
(by Salari with text by
Norge Espinosa Mendoza)
will be held this Saturday,
March 29, at Mekic Gallery
(4438 de la Roche), 5–7 p.m