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Callejón
de Hamel
Project of Salvador González Escalona
Born:
Camaguey 1948
Painter, Muralist, Sculptor
Asesor de Arte Popular
Metals Technologist |
"In
reality, the Callejón de Hamel is a heavy load
of poetic images and sculpture that you have to live
through, as you have lived it in the rumba, in all of
the goings on that take place around it. This is, for
many, a thing of magic, because it is the result of
a conversation with the orishas over a period of many
years. It's where you can see landing that white dove
of Obbatalá that flies and flies and flies until
it finds its place here."
"Its
walls express in one form or another the feeling of African
art, that is the presence of African culture in our country.
You will find here pieces of sculpture, overhanging roofs with
many colors, poetry, images. A house that could be a temple,
or that is a temple for this community. It is Black poetry that
is in each house, which is at the same time a temple."
"The
barrio Cayo Hueso is a barrio of the people, with a great cultural
force which has given rise to some magnificent artists. It is
so called because in the past many people from Key West, Florida,
lived here, mostly tobacco workers who wound up settling here.
People in the area started referring to 'the people from Cayo
Hueso,' cubanizing the Key West. From that came the 'barrio
Cayo Hueso."
"We
find here many of our best musical traditions. In this
alley many years ago, in the 40's, a cuban musical movement
was born, known as "filin," songs of feeling,
with our friend Angelito Díaz and his now deceased
father, Tirso Díaz. There were figures such as
Elena Burque, the late Moraima Secada, aunt of Jon Secada,
Omara Portuondo (featured in Buena
Vista Social Club), César Portillo de la
Luz, and many others."
"Here,
the traditional comparsas (carnival street bands) of
our barrio are very important. So too all the rumbas
formerly played in Trillo Park. This is also a place
steeped in popular religion. You can walk down the street
and hear a 'toque'. Abakuá plants (for initiations)
are found all over. The barrio has its own 'potencia'
of the secret Abakuá religion, very important
here."
"I
am talking about the religion known as Santería,
which comes from the Yorubas; Palo Monte, which comes from the
Congo; Abakuá, which has to do with Calabar [the Cross
River Delta in Nigeria]; and maybe some manifestations of spiritism,
a cultural expression of working class people, the ordinary
folks in our country."
"This
barrio has a strong contingent of Black
people. Of course, we don't have all of the Black people in
the city here. Our country is a mixture of African, Spanish,
and Asian presences. The barrio looks great, with many colors
that shine even more now that there has been some remodeling.
In one way or another, this work that we began here in Centro
Habana has resulted in the same kind of color and magic that
the barrio has to begin with."
"In
the decades of the 40's and the 50's this musical movement rose
up in the house of Tirso Díaz where a group of young
people got together who are now stars of Cuban music. But that
movement did not grow further there and the Callejón
de Hamel stayed in the dust, forgotten in time. It was in 1990
when I set myself the task of beginning to paint these walls.
As I painted, I saw how the alley was growing. I saw how interesting
things came up, how it was becoming converted bit by bit into
a monumental work. And monumental works deserve respect. So
I began to revere this respect and people then began to interiorize
this."
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"Not
even I knew I was transforming myself into one of the pioneers
of the theme -- although great masters such as Wifredo Lam had
painted murals, they were painted inside houses. But as to outside
murals, maybe fate reserved this little piece for me. And that's
how we get this mural on a public street. People's reaction
was magical. Many knew the work it took me to find the materials
and told me 'Maestro, I have in the house a little bit of red
oil paint,' or yellow, or a little printing dye. And so it was
that I began to paint with whatever I came across. At that time
I still hadn't traveled outside of Cuba. It's for this that
I love this work so much, it has achieved such an international
recognition, it is known in a lot of places. It is from this
work that I travel abroad. I'm not giving thanks because this
got me abroad, I give thanks because I have been able to take
out our culture, which is AfroCuban
culture."
"Loíza
is a very important Black
community in the northwest of the island, where they play rumba.
It's like I'm bringing over the rumba of the Callejón
de Hamel as a gift to the rumba of Loíza. I painted another
mural in San Sebastián street, in a place they call Rumba
because there at night you can hear the drums and cajones [wooden
boxes used as drums]. The last one I made was in a community
called La Perla, a very humble community near Old San Juan.
In La Perla, they know a lot about African culture. I experienced
these places and for that I wanted to give them a mural with
all the love and care of a Cuban artist. It's really great to
see how you can re-create your culture in other places and how,
from the mural work, you can establish these links around the
world."
"There
are artisans and plastic artists who don't know these themes
and dare to intrude on them. But they only do that in order
to sell. Of course, for foreigners who don't know our culture,
who have only heard of Voudu and confuse it with Santeria,
when they come to Cuba, they look for the exotic side of this
theme. They encounter certain people who sell them images of
the orishas (Yoruba dieties) and talk to them of Elegguá,
Changó, or Yemayá, without any grounding, that
is without any preliminary study before executing the work.
I don't want to say that's the case with everyone. The are excellent
artists whose work is well grounded. And I add myself to them.
I think you have to start with a work whose values are well
grounded for our culture to be preserved and our traditions
maintained. In this way our image, which has traveled through
time, gives faithful proof of our true identity as a people.
This is the great importance that Callejón Hamel holds
for us, it preserves those values which for many are archaic,
primitive, but which nevertheless have their origin in one of
the oldest cultures on earth -- the Yoruba culture which in
Cuba is lived at the threshold of the third millenium, with
a living ritual, with living consecrated drums, with living
elements of a strong cultural identity which prevails in our
food, in our education, in our manner of speech, in our way
of talking, in the way we express ourselves. Here the values
of a cultural identity are intrinsic. Taking care of this, preserving
this, we attain what our don Fernando Ortíz said:
'Every people who denies themselves is thereby in danger of
a suicide trance.'
The thing is not to deny ourselves, but to fight on."
I,
Cuba-Junky as myself and an Hija de Obbatalá get
very inspired by a man like Salvador Gonzáles.
Thank you Salvador
Callejon
de Hamel
San Lazaro # 955
E/ Aramburu y Hospital
Centro Habana, Cuba
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