In Cuba, pho­tog­ra­phy has passed through nearly the same stages that in the rest of the world. It has been art, doc­u­ment, record, hand­i­craft, sym­bol, medium, index, rem­nant, truth and also lie, cre­ation and some­times fan­tasy. But above all, it has been a tool in the hands of jour­nal­ists, por­traitists, sci­en­tists, crim­i­nol­o­gists, artists and also pho­tog­ra­phers.

But what is spe­cial about Cuban pho­tog­ra­phy? Fo­cus­ing both on his­tory and facts, modes of pro­duc­tion and con­texts, the lec­ture will ad­dress the broad spec­trum of is­sues from the first da­guer­rotype in 1840 to the most re­pro­duced image in the his­tory of pho­tog­ra­phy.