Richard Sharum: Campesino Cuba
Richard Sharum is a documentary and project-based photographer based in the Dallas, Texas area. Mainly focusing on socio-economic or social justice dilemmas concerning the human condition, his work has been regarded as in-depth, up-close and personal. Selections have been added to private and public collections across the world, with exhibitions in Kyoto, Japan, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Reggio Emilia, Italy, New York, and Dallas.
His commissions include those by The Meadows Foundation, Centers for Community Cooperation, Harvard Law School, Student Conservation Association, Childrens Medical Center (Oncology), Childrens Cancer Fund, Notre Dame School for the Mentally Ill, Family Gateway Homeless Shelter, and several others over the years. His publications include those by The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, The New York Times Lens Blog (Great American Eclipse), D Magazine, International Business Times Weekly, Glasstire, The Dallas Observer, SpacingToronto Magazine.
RR: Hello Richard, glad to have you on Deep Red Press. I remember seeing your work and efforts with the Observe Dallas Project back in 2015.
RS: Glad to be here. Likewise, I have been following DRP and have been impressed with what you are aiming for with highlighting Texas photographers.
RR: Your work hasn’t stopped, recently becoming a 2019 XXXII Eddie Adams Alumnus. Congrats! How did you begin your photography career? What got you interested?
RS: It started simply enough by me going back to school in 2005 to Northlake College. My original aim was to get my basic classes out of the way to forge ahead towards a degree in History, so that I could teach. As an elective requirement, I selected a Black and White 101 film photography class, darkroom and all.
I quickly became obsessed with everything involved in photographing, developing and printing images. I also became transfixed with the Magnum Agency and their classic repertoire of documentary photographers, and their ability to simultaneously document history and their own experiences living through it. This is when I also became an evangelist for conveying empathy through images, with the hope that meaningful work elicits empathy in others.
I was given a job at the school running the darkroom and helping other students, which allowed me to have a darkroom key, which is all I was really interested in. This allowed me to work by myself until dawn sometimes. As part of an assignment for my 101 class, I met a sculptor (Tomas Bustos) who introduced me to the Dallas Creative Arts Center, who ended up asking me to photograph their upcoming catalog that year. That work led to the Meadows Foundation (who supported DCAC) to commission me to photograph over a dozen non-profits in North Texas. They also commissioned 32 prints.
From the very beginning I have always insisted on absolute creative freedom when working, and I got that from the Meadows commission. This is when I decided what my mission was in life and I dropped out of college. My original intent in wanting to teach history was to show the parallels of past events to current ones in the minds of those I was instructing. Documentary work allowed me to document and record history as it was happening, and maybe highlight a history that is being ignored contemporarily.
One of those non-profits I covered, Children’s Cancer Fund, led to an extensive documentation of children suffering cancer at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. This, of course, led to other things, and the rest is history.
RR: In your most recent body of work, Campesino Cuba, you’ve traveled to regions of Cuba and focused on a rural community and the changes happening. What did you discover about the Campesinos there?
RS: I discovered that Cuba, and Cubans in general, are highly misunderstood by my own countrymen and women. I surmised that this is mainly due to the political situation between our two countries, and Americans’ inability to travel freely there for over 60 years. When any one people have a lack of information about a culture, or another people, they look to popular media to fill that vacuum. In the U.S., that consists of a bombardment of photos and text revolving around Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
In addition to these political figures and their individual personalities, the idea of Cuba usually centers around Havana, the capital. Also, most imagery coming out of the island, I felt, relied too much on the colorful streets and clothing of Havana to gain interest. Being heavily color-blind, these images were never of any interest to me.
I knew that if I were to ever go to Cuba, I would want to discover what was outside of this limited view and get as far away from it as possible. In the process, I met the warmest, most hospitable people I have ever come across (after having worked on five continents). They were just as eager to learn about me as I was about them. They were also brutally honest in their beliefs about life, and their love towards me and others. Refreshingly honest. As a people, their questions, compliments, and criticisms are direct, heartfelt and convincing in sincerity, something I feel we as a people (and many others) could learn from.
RR: There is a shift happening in the areas you traveled to. The younger generation of men have started to leave the campos for new and more financial opportunities in cities as Cuba introduces the internet to its national economy. How did your interest in Cuba and this cultural migration begin?
RS: I have always been interested in Cuba as it was forbidden. And like most things forbidden, it is our inquisitive human nature to seek and explore those things out. I also suspected that our assumptions of Cubans as a people were wholly unfounded. I wanted to go as deep as I could, where most might be uncomfortable in going, to see what I would find. This is when I discovered the exodus of young males leaving the countryside for the cities, in hope for a “brighter” future that didn’t involve back-breaking agricultural labor.
In and of itself, this may seem like a typical story, repeated over the ages in all nations. But with the now 60 year embargo put in place by the U.S., the parade of young men leaving the fields for the cities has grim implications for Cuba as a whole. 85% of Cuba is rural and the land has not been utilized to its full potential. Therefore, Cuba still relies on its allies to help feed its own people. One of the main reasons the land hasn’t been maximized is their lack of modern tools and machinery, also a direct result of said embargo. With this exodus, old men who would normally be retired, and women, who are normally the homemakers, are going into the fields to continue the work and try to feed the nation. If this continues, the labor shortage and the continued embargo could spell disaster for the Cuban people that rely on this agriculture.
RR: The embargo has been at the forefront of our national conversation in recent weeks - with protests and demonstrations happening in Cuba in response to the conditions the country is in. Did you predict your work coming at a time of such heightening?
RS: No, but I also know that due to the relationship, both current and past between our two countries, the embargo is always at the forefront of any conversation, whether conscious or not. Also, most people do not realize that the majority of the strife and protesting is happening in the cities, where the population is inherently reliant on the State to provide food and assistance. In the city, there is no other food source other than the stores, which are usually low in supply and high in demand.
The campesino people for the most part are self-reliant. They of course do require some assistance if that particular food or crop is not near their area (such as rice in the mountains), but overall the campesinos are well fed and taken care of internally amongst themselves. Whatever crop is abundant, is easily and usually traded with nearby towns where they have supplemental crops and food- coffee for fish, etc.
For the campesino, the biggest and most dangerous deprivation is medicine, which is a direct result of a now 60 year embargo imposed by our own government, which is a failed policy of attrition against those who deserve it the least- the campesino, who encompass 85% of the island.
RR: Was it a difficult process to photograph these communities and the sensitive nature of the conditions?
RS: This was the largest revelation reached in the almost 4 years I was present. The assumption was that I would have a difficult time, especially in areas where people like me don’t often go. When I say “people like me”, that encompasses my complexion, my citizenship (from a hostile country), and the fact that I have a tool draped around my neck that has the potential for nefariousness and dishonesty.
Of course I was wrong, as I hoped I would be, and was welcomed in every village I traveled to. The level at which they showed me love and hospitality was on the same level that you and I would treat a family member here in the U.S. It is indescribable how taken I was by this compassion and honest love. As I have said in previous interviews, if I could have bottled it up and released it into the U.S., where I feel it is sorely needed (the openness to strangers and honesty), I would have, many times over. Cuba is not perfect, but the one thing it has right is how the people treat one another, known or unknown.
RR: As an outside photographer, how did you get passed those barriers?
RS: I will answer this by saying what I always say when photographers ask me for advice on getting close to subjects, which is another way of answering your question, since it applies to all people, everywhere.
Put the camera down until you are able to speak and move softly around strangers. Don’t be afraid to talk to anyone. In fact, seek out those you wouldn’t normally interact with in public, and then ask yourself why you were apprehensive in the first place. This is the key to photographing at will, with complete autonomy. There is just as much value in being the Anvil as there is in being the Hammer. Wait, then wait some more. You learn these things and people will open up to you like a flower, inviting you in. Search for the justice in that.
RR: The time you spent on the work says a lot about your commitment to telling the story as well. Did anything change for you over the time you spent with the Campesinos? The direction you were going in vs where you think it is now.
RS: It initially began as an attempt to create a historical document on the campesino people and their agricultural methods, before they disappeared. I sought out to capture the workers of tobacco, rice, coffee, etc., and those that work the sea.
In the process of this, and after shooting for almost a year and half on this sole premise, I realized I was missing the bigger story. I became just as interested in campesinos as a people, and I knew that had to include the role of women, children, and the elderly.
At that point I became more interested in the moments that surround the campesino, and not just the toil, the blood, and the sun in the fields.
RR: Campesino Cuba will be published by GOST Books this September (2021). How has the book making process been for you and what will it include?
RS: Making a book is intense. Getting the opportunity to put a book out with a publisher such as GOST is an honor and I have tried to enjoy every minute of it.
Stu Smith is the lead designer and he and I started working on the edit/sequence back in the beginning of March 2020. We worked on it, making edits back and forth, compromises, etc. and it allowed me to see the work with a different point of view. He also encouraged me to go back and rediscover some images that I had initially passed by, giving them new life in the context of the book as a whole object. I strongly recommend that photographers put as many eyes on a book edit as possible, instead of doing it solo. I am very lucky that my first major release is with a name like GOST and I am honored that they chose Campesino to add to their catalog.
The book includes two essays by separate writers- Domingo Pedrera and Aldo Naranjo Tamayo. Pedrera grew up as a campesino in the countryside and so he writes of his childhood and about the life of a rural Cuban. Tamayo is the lead historian for Granma Province in Cuba, and he writes of the historical significance of the campesino people in relation to the history of Cuba. Both are excellent pieces and were very important for me that they be included.
I felt their literary perspective should be prominent, to provide context to the photographs and for the photographs to hopefully provide context for their essays. I also insisted on all text to be bi-lingual as I find it distasteful when a photography book is done on a particular culture and the book is released without their native language included.
The book was meant to be a testimonial towards friendship between our two people, despite the lack of knowledge we have of one another, and to be a book of love that recognizes no border.
RR: I think it's important to have these voices included in the final production of the book and the project itself. Richard, it’s been an honor speaking with you and I look forward to Campesino Cuba.
RS: Raul, thank you for the interest and interview. It was my pleasure.