( ) for Fathers Day
Cubana was born thinking about what is given to fathers on their day. Well, cigars, whiskey, a wallet, a shirt. Golf clubs maybe. A mother is given flowers and chocolates. Why? We all end up with what is given to us, with iconic representations of what things are or should be without questioning.
We started playing with Che Guevara. He is a well worldwide known Argentinian who lived in Cuba and smoked cigars, but has some other attachments too… like revolution and armed violence as its instrument which we cannot, will not ignore. So we started to question the relationship between these icons and the world.
How do we feel about this? What is our approach to icons and why? We believe that an icon is a simplification (the context is hidden) to show a fix idea or image in an ever-moving world. Other problem is that icons have attached values which usually led to binary positions: like love and hate, either you are in or out and they rarely are that simple. Che Guevara, Cuba, revolution are very complex subjects and nobody has the complete information to really grasp them. They are used and reproduce nevertheless.
As we asked these questions we began to disarm these icons, reshaping them and in doing so making them disappear. Once this process was complete we could use this empty space to give new meaning: reformulate the way we think and approach icons.
We have taken a Military Shirt and made 16 unique bands to hold the gift boxes and the Artist UM LAZULI has camouflaged Che Guevara’s image to make him almost disappear. There is something missing in the title and all alfajores from this gift box are iconic flavours transformed and reinvented as alfajores.
I dedicate this gift box to my father and all fathers who are though as icons too: the superhero, who has to be strong and provide for their families, be calm at all times, be the rock, etc. I have put my father in that high place expecting so much of him. My father is a man (a good man) who has changed through time and transformed himself. My father is not a fixed ideal but a human being with all his depths and emotions, trying his best, living through life like we all do and he is wonderful for it.
Te quiero papá