Carolina Sandretto’s Cuba: Beyond the Rhetoric of Poverty

Carolina Sandretto, an Italian photographer based in New York, has published the book 'Cuba. Vivir Con' with Silvana Editoriale. The volume, featuring texts by Walter Guadagnini, Iliana Creper, and Sandretto herself, documents life in the solares—public housing units in Havana and other Cuban cities. Over three years, Sandretto captured interiors filled with objects, people, and atmospheres that evoke the work of Luigi Ghirri. Her images avoid the rhetoric of misery, instead presenting a visual narrative that counters clichés of vintage cars, dance, and Fidel Castro’s political legacy. The series portrays women, the elderly, and children in domestic settings, often in dilapidated former colonial buildings. The result is a kind of extended family album, rendered with medium-format precision, telling stories of daily life, solitude, and friendship. The book was published in 2019 by Silvana Editoriale, 274 pages, €49, ISBN 9788836642496.