Cultures

Cultural groups and regions ranging from Cuba to Europe (such as: Russia, Sweden, and Spain) and the United States, as well as other Latin American countries are represented in the exhibit selections. Even when geographies are disparate and languages are foreign to the reader or artist, the ability to transcend barriers and to create cultural connections through these works is palpable. Below are just two examples of how these works demonstrate these cultural intersections. The viewer is invited to discover many more cultural juxtapositions thoroughout the exhibtion.

One example in the exhibition can be found in the first book that Estévez produced for his new imprint, El Fortín, Dos Mujeres, Una Isla (Two Women, One Island). This book illustrates a cultural and geographic intersection between two poets. It brings together poems by Nancy Morejón and Ruth Behar, thereby connecting an Afro-Cuban poet who lives on the island with a Cuban-Jewish American poet who lives outside the island (in the United States).  Estévez designed the book to explore the idea that the two women poets are reflections of each other and together have given birth to a shared island by combining their poems into one work.

The use of many languages can also suggest the cultural intersections of a collective experience and understanding. Upon lifting the second layer of the cover of Fin y Principio (The Beginning and The End), four translations of the poem "Beginning and End" in Polish, Spanish, English, and French are written to illustrate the universality of the text's message. 

In many of these artists' books, the blending of cultures and experiences is usually evident from the covers of the items and is often imbued throughout by creative intertextual illustrations. Therefore, the images chosen for the display typically show the front covers of the items; however, at times, examples of pages and facets of an artists' book are also displayed thereby allowing the viewer to better understand the connection between the Cuban artists' and their culturally diverse subjects.

Identities