Luis Casadevall presents We Still Have the Soul.Havana at the Ateneo de Madrid during PHotoESPAÑA.
For twelve years, Luis Casadevall returned time and again to the same streets of Havana. He was not seeking to produce a report on Cuba or document its political reality. He wanted to understand its people, learn their stories, and discover what keeps a city alive even in the most difficult circumstances.
The result is We Still Have the Soul. Havana, an exhibition featuring 34 photographs selected from more than 65,000 images taken over twelve years of work in the Cuban capital.
The exhibition is part of PHotoESPAÑA and is on view at the Ateneo de Madrid.
What began as a journey gradually became a deep relationship with Havana and its people.
For more than a decade, Casadevall returned again and again to the same neighbourhoods, spending time with families, artists, workers and local residents. He learned to listen before he photographed.
For this reason, the images in this exhibition are not only about Cuba. They speak of dignity, identity, resilience and the human capacity to move forward even in the face of adversity.
A HUMAN PORTRAIT OF HAVANA
These photographs reveal a city full of contrasts.
Children playing in deteriorating streets. Dancers transforming ordinary corners into stages. Faces marked by hope, pride and nostalgia.
Casadevall chose to work exclusively in black and white, distancing himself from the familiar tourist image of Cuba and focusing instead on its people.
“I could not see this project in colour. The city was not the subject. The people were.”
The selection avoids clichés and easy judgments. It does not seek to explain Cuba.
It invites us simply to observe.
FROM BOOK TO PHotoESPAÑA
The project resulted in the publication of We Still Have the Soul. Havana, released by La Fábrica and edited by renowned photo editor Chema Conesa.
First published in Spain in November 2025, the book sold out within three months. A new international edition, available in both English and Spanish, is now being released.
From an archive of more than 65,000 photographs, Conesa selected 200 images for the first edition of the book. The exhibition presents 34 of them.
Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, author of the book’s prologue, captures the spirit of the project in a single sentence:
“If Cuba’s soul endures, it is because it is immortal.”
“Faces, countless faces. Black, white, mixed-race; young, adult, elderly; women and men. Groups, couples, solitary figures.
Around them, an environment almost always marked by decay: ruins, crumbling walls, dimly lit spaces, at times bleak, as poverty so often is. Streets that seem to lead nowhere and, finally, the sea. The sea as a place of freedom, purification, relief; a meeting point with something beyond, whether earthly or spiritual. A city that is both real and recognizable, where individual fragments come together to form a coherent whole. And all of it shaped by a clear aesthetic intention: spaces and people seen through the stark prism of black and white, from an intimate perspective, almost intrusive in its proximity, and therefore deeply revealing, undeniably dramatic.
Luis Casadevall walks and searches, observes and presses the shutter. He avoids clichés, yet never turns away from everyday life. He looks at what is visible, but seeks to uncover a more expressive layer beneath the surface. He carefully constructs his compositions, while remaining open to those unexpected moments that suddenly cross his path and demand attention.
He captures images, hundreds of images, and listens to them. Some of them speak back.”
Text by Leonardo Padura
Luis Casadevall : We Still Have the Soul. Havana
June 2–14, 2026
Ateneo de Madrid – Sala Anselma
C. del Prado, 21, Centro
28014 Madrid, Spain
https://ateneodemadrid.com/eventos/
PHotoESPAÑA 2026
https://phe.es/
