FLOR DE MONTE

Flor de Monte is my photographic and ethnographic essay exploring the persistence of prostitution on Calzada de Monte, a historic neighborhood in Havana. The project documents, from my intimate perspective as a photographer returning to his own adolescent memories, the lives of women who engage in sex work in this area. Through agreed-upon encounters and payment of their fees in exchange for photo sessions, I construct a complex portrait that goes beyond initial morbid curiosity, revealing the stories of motherhood, addiction, institutional violence, and resistance that inhabit the shadowy hallways and rental rooms of Monte.

Flor de Monte is not a sensationalist project about prostitution, but rather an act of horizontal gaze. I, who was once the awkward teenager seeking a service, become a witness who pays for the right to look and listen. The images are portraits of a human geography marked by precariousness, long-distance motherhood, addiction as a daily ritual, and the constant threat of the law. The women of Monte are not passive victims, but subjects who negotiate, demand, hide, laugh, and above all, survive. My project ultimately documents the complexity of a Havana that does not appear in tourist guides: that of dark hallways, bodies rented by the hour, and wildflowers growing between the asphalt.

Chapter 1: The Reunion with Mireya "la flaca" (November 1, 2021)

My first session is an act of negotiation. I, posing as a potential client, approach Mireya, a thin woman who calls herself "la flaca" (the skinny one). I offer to pay her full service fee in exchange for being able to photograph her. She accepts, on the condition that I not use flash so as not to alert the room's owner. The session is tense and quick. Mireya poses in her leopard-print bra on a bunk bed. As we leave, we joke about the brevity of the encounter; she laughs for the first time. I leave with a feeling of unease, a dissatisfaction I cannot fully understand.

Chapter 2: Trust and Nudity (November 4, 2021)

Days later, Mireya contacts me. Now the trust is greater. I convince her to remove the headscarf hiding her head shaved "like a man." Before the session, she makes a revealing confession: her girlfriend, who is in prison, asked her for nude photos. Mireya offers me that intimate space in exchange for the images. The usual room is occupied due to the landlord's birthday, so we move to a friend's room. Photography here becomes an act of mediation between two women separated by bars.

Chapter 3: Yaniuska and the Patrol (February 7, 2022)

Yaniuska, a young woman from Guantánamo with a recent tattoo on her thigh bearing her son's name, is the most vulnerable. She charges less than the others. When we are about to go to the room, a police patrol approaches us. They ask for our ID cards. Nervous, I show my credentials from the Office of the Historian. The officers search us, mention "la técnica" (another specialized patrol), and after a tense moment, let us go with a classic "sorry for the inconvenience." State violence is another actor in the Monte night. Yaniuska refuses to sign the image release at first, but finally agrees. Her resistance is a last redoubt of control.

Chapter 4: Leidi and the Gladiolus (February 14, 2022)

An almost lyrical encounter. Leidi, 23 years old, gets excited about a street flower vendor. I buy her a gladiolus. She doesn't stop smelling it throughout the session. She tells me the scent reminds her of her childhood in Santiago de Cuba, when she ran barefoot. She undresses, and her breasts surprise me with their beauty. The image is a tension between the innocence of memory (the running girl) and the rawness of the present (the naked body in a rental room).

Chapter 5: Madais, the Girl of the Moons (February 18, 2022)

This is the most complex portrait. Madais, 19 years old, has the lunar phases tattooed from her ankle to her thigh. I search for her obsessively for weeks. When I find her, she asks me to accompany her to "take a trip." I agree. I follow her down a shadowy hallway to a house where, before my eyes, Madais prepares her dose of drugs in a homemade pipe. I photograph her in that intimate and devastating ritual. Then, in an air-conditioned room, I take her final portrait. She confesses that the diamond tattooed between her breasts pulses when she travels. I discover it is not a hallucination: the blood flow is visible through her extremely thin skin.

Chapter 6: Odelaysi and the Blind (February 22, 2022)

Odelaysi, 33 years old, has tattooed eyebrows that I compare to a "test pattern." She is laconic, not interested in talking. The session is purely technical. An aluminum blind filters the outside light, illuminating only the upper part of her face and highlighting those geometric eyebrows. When we finish, she goes to the bathroom to urinate, crouching without touching the toilet. Patiently, I use the last frame of my roll to capture that singular pose.

Chapter 7: The Desire to Detox (March 9, 2022)

In our last encounter, Madais tells me she wants to enter a detox center. She hasn't slept in three days, barely eats. I feel empathy and offer her my support. The session is a farewell act. She prepares her "trip" again as I photograph her. The diamond between her breasts pulses once more. My project ends not with a heroic resolution, but with a fragile promise: the possibility that the girl of the moons might leave the night behind.