"Mi Raíz es" is a portrait of the Cuban people through the verses of the poet Samuel Feijoo.

We spread the twenty-five verses of the poem “No sé” around different places in the Romerillo neighborhood, on the outskirts of Havana, establishing an explicit link between each verse and its location, and an invisible one between all of them, creating new routes and different ways of relating to the fabric of the neighborhood and the poem.

The project was carried out within the framework of the XII Havana Biennial, as part of the Romerillo Organic Museum promoted by the artist KCHO.

CONTEXT

El Romerillo is a neighbourhood located in the west of Havana. Its landscape is as heterogeneous as it is compact. A collage of bricks, rusty sheets of crude oil barrels, wooden planks, domino tables with perpetual activity, children running around, prefabricated blocks, the shadow of a mango tree, the skeleton of an old car, itinerant fruit carts, dogs, plastered walls, music and women talking. An endless number of materials that tell us how Cubans are capable of drawing the most unlikely situations. We work on some of these supports that speak of identity, also seeking to underline some of the peculiarities that define the routine of El Romerillo.

Flooding is frequent due to inadequate drainage of the sewer system.

Local fruit vending cart

Ariel and Leira

Local Guarapera

THE INTERVENTION

We take as a starting point the poem “No sé” by the Cuban Samuel Feijoó. “No sé” portrays the strength of the roots of the Cuban people. Water, rock and sun define a place and a belonging. The configuration of the verses themselves, with a marked verticality, establishes a formal parallelism with the deep root that takes hold. We take advantage of this abstraction to “explode” the twenty-five verses of the poem, and place them in different places in Romerillo. The spatial decomposition of the verses provides the text with even greater abstraction, generating as many possible versions of the poem as there are routes through the streets that house it. On an individual level, each of the verses has found its place in the neighborhood, completing it and providing a new meaning to everyday life.

NO SÉ" by Samuel Feijóo

Mis raíces son profundas
porque viví
en el desierto.
La arena
y el sol. Sed.
Fuego.
Abajo,
desesperada
mi raíz mordía
la roca,
mordía,
mordía…
Llegó al agua.
Mi raíz es
mi
vida-madre.
Y
No.
sé
qué
es que
supo
horadar
la
roca.