The photographic series Platos para los muertos (dishes for the dead) reflects on the integration of the Afro-Cuban religion “Santeria” into material reality. The ritual becomes every day life and every day life becomes the ritual, mutually supporting each other.
These offerings or “Addimu” are a faithful testimony of the Afro-Cuban cultural resistance, which has survived in its successive centuries of existence: Spanish colonialism, republican oppression and, finally, the first three decades of prohibition of any religious practice during the Cuban socialist revolution.
In the elaboration of these dishes, the great variety of European, Chinese and local or typical of South America ingredients reveals all the historical process of religious syncretism carried out by slaves and Afro-descendants on the island.
Starting from my experience as a religious practitioner of Santeria and following the indications of the OBA ECUM book, where some traditional recipes, until recently, were kept secret, I have elaborated some of the dishes for the different saints (Orishas), in a very personal way, with the objective of documenting them photographically.