Michael Christopher Brown: Yo Soy Fidel

Yo Soy Fidel follows the cortège of Fidel Castro, former Cuban revolutionary and politician, over a period of several days in late 2016. American photographer Michael Christopher Brown (born 1978) leaned out of a rear passenger window of his passing vehicle in order to photograph Cubans waiting alongside the highway for Fidel’s military convoy, carrying his cremated remains from Havana to Santiago, to pass. The route mirrored Fidel’s post-revolution journey from Santiago to Havana in 1959, which helped solidify his image as hero and legend. In Yo Soy Fidel, fragments of this initial image have survived his death though perhaps inevitably lead to a question of what is to come. A country largely seen for half a century as a symbol of dignity and hope in the fight against imperialism, Cuba has a choice: to stay true to Fidel’s revolutionary path or embrace globalization and all it entails.