From Matanzas to Havana and Vice Versa, the Yumurino Photographer Develops Her Work

Matanzas photographer Karla González Horta took part in the «Matter» exhibition, recently inaugurated at the Valonia Window, located in Plaza Vieja, Havana.

«The photograph that is part of this exhibition is part of ‘Abuelos’ (Grandparents), a series that is also part of ‘Alegorías de una Infancia’ (Allegories of a Childhood), a project I started for the birth of Lucas, my child. It is the beginning of a project that conceptually I love, since they are not only photos taken by me; it includes some that my mother took of me and my son, and that I later continued.

«As I developed it, I realized that we repeated fewer parenting patterns and routines than my mother had with me, which is why it is a project that has no limited end time. I suppose I will finish it when Lucca has his child, and who knows if at that moment another type of project will be born. It excites me greatly to do it, and it has given me much happiness.»

See also: https://www.radio26.cu/noticias-de-matanzas/cultura/sempiterno-de-karla-gonzalez-horta-contra-el-cancer-de-mamas/

The collective exhibition is integrated into the Mujer Sociedad project and seeks to integrate and make visible the image of women from the perspective of several. «Mujer Sociedad is a project curated and led by Alain Fuentes, and in recent times Diana Mary Pedraza has also joined the project’s curation.

«It is a project that develops in Havana but welcomes women from various manifestations, although mostly from the visual arts, not only from Cuba but also foreign, with the main objective of making visible the work being created and creating a discourse from the different gazes of each of the women who make it up.

«Since 2024 I have been part of Mujer Sociedad. I came to it because Alain contacted me, interested in my work, and proposed that I participate in a collective exhibition at the Havana Biennial.

«The exhibition was called ‘Vital Límites,’ and I participated with a work that was part of my first solo show called ‘Virago,’ which addressed all the introspection that the maternity process brings with it and the physical and psychological changes involved in understanding and accepting this whole process.

«From there, new encounters and collaborations emerged, and for two years now my work has accompanied each exhibition project for which Alain summons us.»

More than eighty visual artists joined the exhibition, among them Matanzas natives Gio Fernández, Leidy Castellanos, Rebeca Tirse, and Lisbeth Hernández. «I believe this project is important because, beyond a feminist vision of art, it is creating a dialogue between the different ways of seeing ourselves among us and learning from the ways in which we manifest and make visible our concerns and ways of seeing life and the common trunk that unites us: being women.

«It also highlights the fact of how, in such an interesting way, a discourse is achieved with such dissimilar gazes that occupy the same space without reaching questioning or judgment but rather understanding and acceptance.»

See also: https://www.radio26.cu/noticias-de-matanzas/cultura/karla-la-mujer-que-retrata-las-sutilezas-y-esencias-de-la-mujer-fotos/

González Horta now focuses on a project with themes similar to those defended by Matter. «I am working on the basis of a solo exhibition I want to show at the end of the year in Havana, which deals with these same themes I have addressed throughout my work: women, maternity, love and heartbreak, and all the processes that life brings with it in general, not only for women but also for the human being in current times.

«I am also glad to be part of ‘Tumbao,’ which is an exhibition of relevance within FOTOCANÍMAR, the Matanzas International Photography Festival that will be inaugurated at the end of October and will be on display throughout November, and that also excites me greatly.»

According to curators Diana Mary Pedraza and Alain Fuentes, Matter aims to dialogue about maternity and matriarchy as a space where bodies, time, and culture converge.