Alessandro Cosmelli and Gaia Light: Havana Buzz [Paperback]

The fourth chapter in the Buzz Projectseries, Havana Buzzis devoted to one of the most iconic metropolises in the world.

Casting an eye beyond its romantic façade to its impoverished population, photographers Cosmelli and Light depict the capital in this moment of long-awaited historical transition. Caught in fleeting glimpses from its public buses, Havana’s features are dispassionately laid bare. Behind the romantic languidness of its urban relinquishment, the daily struggles for survival of an impoverished but resourceful population are displayed against the backdrop of anachronistic propaganda billboards, decrepit housing estates, crumbling infrastructures and a lush tropical nature that reclaims its rule after man’s neglect. Yet signs of change are visible throughout the city and the new appears to seep through the cracks of the past, creating a unique blend of antique and nouveau, nostalgia and hope, disillusionment and elation. The world may soon lose the Havana of romantic postcard dreams, but the people of Havana may be about to experience a new revolution.