Entry Title: " cuba 1959: The Second Front"
Name: ALINKA echeverria, United Kingdom
Category: Professional, Photo Essay and Feature Story


Entry Description: Fifty five years ago, young men from impoverished rural areas in the highlands of Cuba rose up against the dictator, Batista to join Fidel Castro’s rebel army. They had no weapons, supplies, nor guarantees of survival. Triumph seemed like a distant possibility, yet many claim they had nothing to lose. My project revisits the history of this remarkable revolution through the personal biographies of men, who despite dedicating their lives to their leaders, have remained anonymous, humble and completely dependant on the communist system. These men live in the town of Segundo Frente, a strategic operational centre and battleground during the war. It remains a military zone, closed to tourists. Isolated in the mountains and far from the city, it survives like a stubborn bubble of quasi-religious devotion to Castro and his utopic revolution, seemingly oblivious to the external world and the prevailing ideological crisis in the rest of the country. Powerful propaganda fuels the belief in sovereignty and socialism, and the conviction to fight without rest against the enemy – capitalism, the USA and traitors of the revolution.

Echeverría is a graduate of The International Center of Photography in New York and has an M.A in Social Anthropology from The University of Edinburgh. In 2011 she was the recipient of the HSBC Prix pour la Photographie and a participant of World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass. Her work has been featured in over fourty exhibitions worldwide, including solo exhibitions at the 2012 Lima Biennial of Photography, the Moscow Photobiennale, and the upcoming Festival of Light in Buenos Aires and Eb&Flow Gallery in London. Notable collective exhibitions include the 52nd Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), The New York Photo Festival (2010), Steven Kasher Gallery in New York (2010), Flash Forward Festival in Toronto (2010,2011), Galerie Réverbère in Lyon (2011), Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris (2011), Maison de la Photographie in Lille (2011), Maison European de la Photographie in Paris (2011), The Royal College of Art in London (2011), the National Portrait Gallery in London (2011), Bibliothèque Nationale de France François Mitterrand (2011), Fototeca Nacional del INAH and Museo Archivo de la Fotografía in Mexico (2011). Over recent years she has been awarded by PX3 Prix Pour la Photographie, CENTER, Magenta Foundation, American Photo and ASMP among others. Collections include: Beth Rudin DeWoody, Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, HSBC France/Fondation de France, Lehigh University Art Galleries LUAG. Publications include GEO, Marie Claire, Liberation, Le Monde Magazine, Le Monde, The British Journal of Photography, Visura Magazine, PHOTO, Ogoniok and Foam, as well as her first book with a foreword by Christian Caujolle published by Actes Sud in 2011.