Ernesto Javier Fernández

b. Havana, Cuba, 1963; resides in Miami, Florida, United States

Untitled, From the Series “Todos mis vecinos quieren ir al cielo” (All My Neighbors Want To Go to Heaven) 

2015

Digital printing in backlight, PVC tubes, magnifying glasses, LED

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Ernesto Javier Fernández brings his training as a photojournalist, commercial photographer, and cinematographer to his art. His work expands on photography, fusing it with graphic elements and integrating it into objects, antique technological devices, sculptures, installations, videos, and light boxes.

 

To create this work, Fernández used a drainage pipe into which he inserted illuminated images of a dilapidated Havana and Cubans about to escape the city by sea on homemade rafts. The photographs were taken during the migratory stampede known as the Cuban raft crisis of 1994, when over 35,000 Cubans immigrated to the United States via makeshift rafts. Fernández uses the drainpipe as a metaphor for citizens fleeing a country in ruins, draining the society.

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*This piece was included in the exhibition section titled "The Great Journey: Archives."