January 13 — March 04 2007

Featuring:

• Landon Taylor

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On the surface, unconquered may seem an unlikely word to use to describe Cuba. Indeed, for much of its history, beginning with colonization by the Spanish in the 1500’s, Cuba has been dominated by outside forces. This trend continued through its time as a U.S. “Protectorate” and until the 1959 Castro-led revolution.

Though I am generally averse to feelings of national pride, I’ve always drawn a distinction, probably an erroneous one logically, between say American patriotism and patriotism in a place like Cuba. It seems to me to be the difference between possessing the pride of the conqueror and possessing the pride of the unconquered.

For Cubans, this has been perhaps an expensive dignity and some might say that they’ve been conquered from within. Even those loyal to the revolution would have to concede the repressiveness of the Castro regime and the difficulty of these last fifty years. This difficulty though, has served to reduce things to the essential. Cubans use the phrase viviendo con menos, living with less, to describe their adjustment to the hardships of daily life; and I’ve heard it said that Cubans always manage to get what they truly need.

So I use the word unconquered as a tribute to the Cuban people, for their resilience and innovation in the face of adversity, and indeed for their Cuban pride. Ron Hughes/Composition Gallery