«La bahía, we were thinking how to perform a nuclear action» is a process based on the poetic relationship of Alessandra Santiesteban or Yunet with the Nuclear City. This is the name given to the town near the
Juraguá Nuclear Power Plant, CEN.
The CEN represents a myth of the most ambitious radioactive project of the Revolution. Its existence makes it necessary to remember the facilities that would represent the FUTURE. And whose works were stopped in 1992 by Fidel Castro after the collapse of the socialist camp and the intensification of the US economic embargo.
Those who live in that area of the island located in the province of Cienfuegos (Cuba) have lived with the certainty that the proximity to an unfinished reactor is not a random fact. Living near a myth cannot be a random destiny for any generation.
Engineers, technologists and scientists graduated from universities of the socialist camp moved to the Nuclear City to build a life of prosperity and future there. In 1974, the dialogues to build this mutual alliance between Cuba and the USSR had begun. It is important to say that Juraguá has a fishing community with several centuries of existence, and whose support continues to be sea fishing.
The bay… has been traversed by a documentary experience. Through uncertainty. Through the uselessness of ‘being there.’ Through the gesture of the ‘author’ and the effect of daily life (the simple life of a countryside town) in the face of an idea of destruction, failure, and rupture.
The CEN is a symbol, the failure of a radioactive epic, the trace of the USSR and the electric future of the Revolution. The inhabitants of Juraguá coexist on the edge of everything. After the news published in 2015, which announced the possibility that the reactor would become a hazardous waste dumpster, the ‘happiness’ remained intact… Those who know about this say nothing, those who want to know don’t know how to seek information, and the rest are not interested.
The connection of Alessandra Santiesteban or Yunet with these events is perceptible in these pages as notes. Those notes that accompany the visitor, the artist, the poet, during their encounter and departure. During their stay in the place and their laboratory project. During the writing and recording of their journeys, the plays, the photos, and the films they could dream of.