Dallas photographer Richard Sharum immersed himself in oft-overlooked parts of Cuba for photo book
Richard Sharum’s heart sank when he saw the father carry his 5-year-old daughter. She had endured a fever for days and the family had lost hope that it would subside. Now father and daughter rushed to the nearest hospital – two and a half hours away.
Sharum, a seasoned photographer who has exhibited his work in Japan, Brazil, and Italy, had previously spent hours photographing this family in La Perla, Cuba. He knew her as a sweet, caring group that calls him Mijo and, like many Cubans, kisses guests on the cheek on arrival and when they leave. He was returning to her village home for more photos in the middle of a gruesome Cuban summer when he stumbled upon this haunted, frightening scene.
“She looked like she was dying,” remembers Sharum. It was only the second time in his long career that his eyes watered at work. He later learned that the daughter had an infection that was easily treatable for most Americans. However, as the family lived far from pharmacies and clinics, their condition deteriorated rapidly.
“She had brain damage,” says Sharum, “and the next time I saw her, she had lost control of the right side of her body.”
For his photo book Campesino Cuba, published on September 7, Sharum traveled from January 2016 to November 2019 to Cuban villages that are often overlooked. He wasn’t interested in highlighting Havana or giving more space to the strained relations between Cuba and the US. Rather, he set out to eradicate stereotypes through an honest, comprehensive look at rural villages that sometimes only have 20 people living in them.
A child swims in the Yara River near the Cuban Sierra Maestra Mountains.(Richard Sharum)
The Dallas-based photographer has spent years documenting the lives of underrepresented people for exhibitions and publications like The Atlantic and Texas Monthly. He has photographed children and families who were homeless and began photographing people in Sandbranch, a Dallas County community that survived decades without running water, in 2018. But this project affected him in ways that few others have.
“I always kept a line between myself and the test subjects,” he says. “But it went away in Cuba.”
Sharum, who is white, grew up on Corpus Christi in the 1980s and early 1990s. His great-grandparents were from the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, just across the border, but his grandmother married a white woman from Missouri. Sharum grew up in a multiethnic family, and his father and his father’s siblings often told stories of being called “mixed race” by the locals. When he was growing up, Sharum endured the same bullying. The budding photographer learned early on that even subtle differences in skin color can shape the image of the world.
A 93-year-old woman named Dolores rests in her bedroom in the village of La Perla, Cuba.(Richard Sharum)
“That’s why I want to go into the core of the people,” he explains his work. “I want to create empathy.”
His Cuba project was a way to clear up misunderstandings about a group of people that Americans rarely, if ever, hear about.
“I see myself as a visual mediator,” he says. “The whole book tries to introduce these people to Americans as human beings because they may never get a chance to meet them.”
With the help of a local who started out as a driver and then became his “fixer” and good friend, Sharum connected with campesinos: people who live in rural areas and typically work as farmers. They harbored no hostility towards him or his American status, he explains, and he was often received with open arms and kisses on the cheek.
“When I worked with them and got to know them for over four years, I started falling in love with people,” he says. “I quickly noticed a few things that were a little unsettling. There was a clear lack of medicine and food, and the more I researched, the more I realized that my country was responsible, ”he says, referring to the trade embargo.
The broken relationship between the United States and Cuba even delayed Sharum’s fundraising efforts when Kickstarter staff wanted to know the extent of his communication with Cuban “interests”. Sharum insisted, however, that his book would not be explicitly political; this would distract the campesinos’ attention.
“When you look at a book about Cuba, you will of course see a lot of pictures of [Fidel] Castro and Che Guevara, ”he says.
Richard Sharum found an impressive backdrop in an old generator building in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountain range.(Richard Sharum)
Instead of the famous revolutionaries, readers of Campesino Cuba find harrowing images of fathers at work and children at play. Some of the photographs are bursting with joy, others capture the associated sadness of a life in poverty, a recurring theme for Sharum that he still expects every shoot.
“I had a picture of Castro that was a hand-painted representation in a house, but I had to deal with the designer to get it out,” he says. “I didn’t want to distract attention from the people who live there day in and day out.”
details
Campesino Cuba by Richard Sharum is available from GOST Books.
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