Reportage is happy  to announce another of our featured guests for the 2013 Reportage Festival, Cuban master of photography Raul Cañibano Ercilla who will be exhibiting a retrospective of his work, for the first ever time in Australia at Reportage. Raul will be attending the Festival alongside two other esteemed young documentary photographers (TBA) as a special guest and will be holding talks and seminars about his work and life in Cuba.

Born in Havana in 1961, Cañibano originally a welder is a self taught photographer, inspired by surrealist paintings and by the great photographers such as Josef Koudelka and Sebastian Selgado who taught him to see through the lens of a camera. Raul’s work stands as a testimony to his time in an era of Cuba that is little known to the world.

Despite difficulty due to the restrictions placed upon Cuba, Raul has exhibited work in England, the U.S, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, Malaysia and has had individual exhibitions largely in Cuba and the United States. His work has been published in the New York Times and various other Art and Photography publications.

This month in March Raul opened a retrospective of his work at the Student Art Foundation in Miami and will be exhibiting for the very first time in Australia at the Reportage Festival.

Reportage will be exhibiting Raul’s retrospective work at level 1, of Customs House from May 24 to July 22 as a part of the 2013 Festival also to be included in the Vivid program. Opening night with Raul Cañibano Ercilla  May 29, 2013 (TBA)

These images are from the work  ’Tierra Guajira’ by Raul Cañibano Ercilla

“Tierra Guajira” is the result of a personal project, which began in 1999. As a child I lived in Manati, Las Tunas province, located in one of the more eastern areas of Cuba. As a photographer the need to relive the experiences of my childhood through my images was born and thus I began this work, “Earth Guajira”.

To do this I toured many corners of the island, living day to day with the inhabitants of the more rural parts of my country. I suffered with them in their difficulties, invisible to their eyes as I gradually became a part of their routine I entered into their world, translating sentences, experiences and the joys of those that live in the country with images.

This project has an anthropological nature since my goal was to document modes of life and social habits that might be lost in Cuba with the passing of the years and the change that is going through the society in its constant development.

At the same time my work is a tribute to the nobility, the familiarity and the good of the Cuban peasant.’ <Raul Cañibano Ercilla>

Those wishing to get a preview of how amazing this exhibition will be of Raul’s should head to the opening of the new 10×8 Gallery in Surry Hills April 13, 2013 where a photograph from the retrospective will be on display. 10×8 Gallery will be a venue for various workshops and exhibitions for the Reportage Festival in 2013.