Mantua, Cuba (2015) is a photography project created by Paolo Simonazzi which focuses on a small town close to the island of Cuba.
Legend has it, but there is some basis in reality, that the town of Mantua was founded by people from the Italian city of Mantova. Simonazzi has told this legend, the feeling of forgetfulness, symbols, small intimate totems, rooms in houses, photographs, posters, that conserve the mural paintings of romantic, perhaps revolutionary, socialism. The project includes images at the edge of the imagination: existing and internal spaces, in a historical moment in which change is moving through Cuba as it opens up to the West, to an America which is still so far away.This is also what Mantua strives to be, remains, the evidence of a myth, of a legend, something that remains despite everything.
About Paolo Simonazzi
Paolo Simonazzi was born in Reggio Emilia in 1961.He has participated in numerous personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad; he has published some photo books and some of his images are conserved in important institutions, museums and private collections. His photographs are set in unexpected places where things appear without warning; in those side roads where the limit between real and surreal is blurred and it is easier to come into contact with humble, yet extraordinary strangeness that can put a smile on every day life. [Official Website]
