March 2013
Artist’s Statement
In August of 2011, after almost ten long years, I decided to go back and visit Cuba. The trip was about finding myself in my country, a realization of the fact that I didn’t completely belong here nor there, a limbo, the product of my forced exile. The majority of the photographs taken there do not show strangers to me; I took photos of family, neighbours, friends, and the places that were essential to my childhood. It was a reconstruction of the past. So while looking at these photographs you will see my mother’s cousin, my uncle’s dog trying to avoid the stifling heat of the island, and the table filled with tiny parts where my grandfather has sat for years fixing clocks. These photographs are recovered memories, a defense against forgetting where I come from.
Biography
Dani Alfonso was born in San José de las Lajas, Cuba. She was raised in a communist country and she still feels the consequences of that today. Apart from the daily necessities, Dani had a fascinating childhood. Her mother was a librarian and she grew up surrounded by books, from José Martí’s charming stories to old publications of Sputnik. She moved to the United States when she was thirteen years old and eleven years after, she is still going through a dilatory assimilation process. Dani Alfonso graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s in Spanish Literature and minors in Art History and Latin American Studies and she recently went back to school to pursue a career in Graphic and Interactive Design. She currently resides in Orlando, Florida.
