Félix Suazo
You have transitioned from analog to digital photography. What has that experience been like for you?

Rainy Silvestre
Hi Felix, thank you for inviting me to answer these questions. As you well point out, I started my journey as an analog photographer, then when film began to get scarce and digital cameras came about, I switched for a few years, only to come back rushing to film once it became available again and affordable. In reality, it doesn’t matter which medium we use to express ourselves and create or take photographs; what’s important is that it means something to you and that it fulfills you.

FS
How do you conceive the relationship between the document, the archive, and memory in your photographic work?

RS
I think they are directly related to one another. Having produced on film 
the vast majority, it has to do a lot with the physical negative as an object, its archival properties, in direct correlation to the print and its palpability. 
Our memory is directly attached to our senses, and our ability to touch is 
one of them. 

FS
According to your point of view, what aspects vary when going from the photographic negative to its digitization and printing? Could we affirm that the archive is built from the scanner in your case? Why?

RS
The main difference is not having an analog printing process (Cibachrome, RA-4, etc). Therefore, scanning became the bridge between the two forms. Since the introduction of modern printing methods and papers, printing the old way has become difficult and expensive. Yet, for those who still use them, the negative continues to be the primary source of the image, not the scanner. The scanner it’s just an additional tool. 

FS
In several of your works, the image shows events that are not visible, as it happens in the empty rooms of the Temporary Spaces series or the landscapes of the I Believe in America series. What other non-visible parts do you want to highlight in your photographs?

RS
Although not clearly apparent, it’s implicit that our humanity interests me in the series you mention. Frankly, my entire work explores our humanity, our everlasting stamp on everything surrounding us. What we do, what we build, how we interact with our environment.  

FS
In your series Little Havana, you focus on one of the most emblematic scenarios of the Cuban community in Miami. What aspects of that reality attracted your attention? Is there any biographical motivation in these works? Why?

RS
The idea of Little Havana series was born out of several unplanned walks through this emblematic neighborhood. Initially, I wandered, but as the work progressed, so did my approach. It’s important to mention that it is not only about Cubans but about all the immigrants and the mark they have made and continue to make in this area. As immigrants, we bring our cultural customs and have transported them to Little Havana, creating an environment of acculturation that is unique and clicks with our own stories. 
 

1833
Searching for a new print method, French painter Hércules Florence (1804-1879), who lives in the surroundings of São Paulo, in Brazil, invents a light-writing technique of reproduction he appropriately calls photographie.

1858
Three brothers of Ottoman-Armenian descent, Vicen (1820–1902), Hovsep (1830–1908), and Kevork (1839–1918), open their photographic gallery in Constantinople (now known as Istambul) under the business name of Abdullah Frères.

1866-1867
The album Souvenirs du Sénégal, 1866-1867, by French photographer A. Jacquer, gathers forty-seven prints on albumin papers from glass negatives exposed between 1864-1865.

1876
 The Ghanaian George Lutterodt (1850/55–ca. 1904) opens a gallery portrait in Accra, present-day Ghana.    

1901
In Taichung, Taiwan, during the Japanese era, one of the first generation of Taiwanese photographers, Lin Tsao (1881–1953), inherits a photographic gallery from his teacher Mirimoto and renames it Lin Photo Gallery.

1914
The Clarence H. White School of Photography opens on the eastern side of Greenwich Village, New York, being one of the city’s first specialized schools in this technique.

1930
On September 1st, an exhibition of more than 300 photographs by Harry Moult (1878-1946), a Wellington-based electrical engineer and amateur pictorialist photographer, opens at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts gallery in Wellington’s Whitmore Street.

1940
Young twin sisters Debalina Mazumder (1919-2012) and Manobina Roy (1919-2001), who started practicing photography at age twelve, participate this year in at least two photographic exhibitions: one patronized by the Governor of Bengal and held by the Lens Club Calcutta, and the other, the 3rd Benares All-India Salon organized by the Photographic 
Society of Bangalore.

1952
The Chinese Camera Club of South Africa is formed by members of Johannesburg’s small Chinese community who have been excluded from local photography circuits based on race.

1956
Organized by Cuban art critic José Gómez Sicre (1916-1991), the Visual Art Department director of the Organization of American States (OAS), is presented at the Pan American Union Gallery, in Washington D.C., the exhibition Nacho López, photographer of Mexico, from August 28th to October 4th.

1980
The Hasselblad Foundation, based in Gothenburg, Sweden, starts to grant annually, except for 1983, the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, considered today the most prestigious in the photographic world.

1992
In Indonesia, the news agency Antara opens its photojournalism gallery, the first of its kind in the country.

2000
In Hong Kong, Asia Art Archive is co-founded by Claire Hsu and Johnson Chang as an independent non-profit organization intended to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region, including photography and video arts.

2008
Dina Mitrani opens her gallery in Miami, focusing exclusively on fine art photography and photo-based art.

2020
Due to the instructions issued by the British Government because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the London Sotheby’s auction 50 Years of African Photography, scheduled for March 24, takes the form of an online sale, running from March 27th to 31st.

1   

Rafael Soldi. A Body in Transit 
Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, FIU, Miami
August 20 - December 4, 2022

Photographer Rafael Soldi’s A Body in Transit exhibition at Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum examines how queerness and masculinity intersect with immigration, memory, and loss. 

Born in Peru and based in Seattle, Washington, Soldi uses various methods to create works, including the nineteenth-century photogravure technique and the contemporary photobooth. This exhibition includes works from three interconnected series: Imagined Futures, Entre Hermanos, and Cargamontón. Each series offers deeply personal ruminations on identity while presenting universal yet complex implications of fragility, struggle, and resilience.

2   

You Know Who You Are: Recent Acquisitions of Cuban Art From The Jorge M. Pérez Collection 
El Espacio 23, Miami 
October 27, 2022

Co-curated by Anelys Alvarez and Patricia Hanna from El Espacio 23

This thematic exhibition highlights works acquired since 2017 by The Jorge M. Perez Collection as part of an ongoing investigation and interest in art from Cuba and the Cuban diaspora. 
The exhibition brings together artists from different generations who share collective experiences yet take very personal approaches to their practices. 

You Know Who You Are is a statement of confidence and resistance. In the context of Cuban art and culture, knowing yourself, having a voice, and defending your beliefs is an act of defiance. Most artists in this exhibition revisit Cuba’s past and examine its present by questioning history, deconstructing hierarchies, and reflecting on notions of representation, race, gender, diversity, and human rights. Others reclaim a connection with the island by referencing its physicality or its place in collective memory. Among the works on display are photographs by José Angel Toirac, Marta María Pérez, Alejandro González, and Juan Carlos Alom.

3 

David Palacios - Sensitive Content 
Arts Connection Foundation 
IDArtLab, Miami 
March 11– May 14, 2023

Curated by Andreína Fuentes Angarita and Félix Suazo

Organized by Arts Connection Foundation, the exhibition David Palacios - Sensitive Content comprises three projects focused on violence against women. 

Initially conceived in Africa —specifically in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where the artist lived for several years— the works are based on reports from international organizations that reveal a high rate of female victims of abuse, rape, kidnapping, and exploitation. Palacios juxtaposes statistical information related to the subject, elements of Art History, and content from everyday life, such as the hairstyles and turbans worn by African women. Nigerian artists Obi Nwaegbe and Tersoo Gundu collaborate as guests in one of the projects. 

Born in Havana in 1967 and died in London in 2023, David Palacios combines different aesthetics and languages in his work —from painting to design, from photography to installation and video— to build a hybrid visual poetics where the work of art functions as a support for information and critical plea.

4

Fountainhead Artists Open: Visit to Julia Zurilla’s Studio 
Laundromat Art Space, Miami
May 11, 2023 

During the Fountainhead Artists Open, Miami-based Venezuelan multimedia artist and photographer Julia Zurilla opened her studio to visitors. Along with her video and textile works, Zurilla showed several photographic series on metal and transparencies. 

Presented by Fountainhead Arts, Artists Open is a countywide open studioevent that welcomes the public into more than 300 artists’ studios throughout Miami. The program is designed to remove entry barriers to the arts by inviting the public to engage with artists. It is a unique opportunity to see their creative space and what they surround themselves with for inspiration.