Shortly before the US trade embargo was loosened, Ana Cayuela Muñoz travelled through Cuba. Her encounters with a society isolated by world politics led to a series of photographs that explore the effects economic restrictions have had on human interactions and on people’s private lives. The desires and hopes that have grown out of Cuba’s precarious economic position stand in stark contrast to the tourists’ independence and presented to the artist a special kind of encounter brimming with romanticism, exotic curiosity and power.

In her moving images, Ana Cayuela Muñoz captures the tiny gestures that reveal dreams of another, freer world. At the same time, they show us a deeply personal view of love relationships taking place under different portents. The result is a series of complex photographs that depict a many-layered social structure – and a reality that is already in the process of disappearing.

Ana Cayuela Muñoz (*1991 in Almería, Spain) lives in Berlin und has studied Fine Art at the University of Granada in Spain and the Bauhaus University, Weimar. Her artistic photographies have already been shown in numerous exhibitions and at art fairs. In 2013, she has been awarded with the GRAFE-Kreativpreis and in 2015, she won the German award for young photography.