Mi negocio
(My business)

2014
Installation / Work in progress 
Esto no es un café (Bar-Restaurant-Gallery)
About private property in Cuba.

Focusing on the economic sector and the popular taste in Cuba, I created My Business” to archive three ways that classify the private property assumed by the Cuban society to achieve a better economic status in a personal way. This project consists of different Cuban people creating and declaring their ideal business dreams, alternative and legal business living in Cuba.  

To gather the dream business’s idea, I ask each person to describe the concept of their dream business they have. With only one condition, they must feel completely free and creative about it, without economic or any other kind of ties, for example, hotel chains, urban development companies, beauty salons, private schools, hospitals, etc.

The alternative businesses, unlike the dreamed ones, do not diverge in illusions. They are one of the most concrete ways of earning money, the so-called black market. It is born and filters from the legal structures. Although it is unsteady, and its profits are not enough (the little bit or the to go around), it solves an immediate shortage of the inhabitants who practice it. Examples: sale of medicines, bottling of beers and soft drinks, sale of food, etc.

Legal businesses are approved and have a close relationship with the state. Where laws limits are constantly transgressed by their “owners” for their self-support since the government does not supply their most principal needs. There is no market for this type of private entity, no wholesale of the products they need to ensure their development. This group of private businesses is all those that pay taxes to the Cuban government. Examples: fried food vendor, cafeterias, sales outlets for electrical and plumbing items, etc.

Although some of these businesses live in people’s illusions, some of them exist hidden in the city, others are visible, all of them based on the individual and creativity of the Cubans that through the years have become a collective and cultural aptitude.

This project was an exhibit for its first time in one of the legal businesses.

List of artworks:

Mi negocio (My business)