¡Yo soy Fidel!: Post-Castro Cuba and the Cult of Personality

The death of Fidel Castro in 2016 led to the mass projection of iconic images of the former Cuban leader by the world’s media. The story of this historic moment was told in images that underscored Cuba’s long and complex relationship with photography. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, photographs have informed the way a global public has made sense of the country and its people. This project will propose that photography is a multilingual medium that should therefore be explored using multiple cultural and linguistic frameworks. Drawing on fieldwork and practice-led research, the project will conceive iconic Cuban images as representative of multilingual photography and will problematize the way these visual texts are produced and consumed in different transnational contexts. In doing so, it will broaden understanding relating to the development of personality cults both in Cuba and in the European context.