Havanna

there is an infinite set of stereotypes about mass housing estates. housing estates deny concurrently both the community and the personality. housing estates of what noone has dreamed about, and still take part in so many of our dreams and stories. from the collective memory of the city veiled into the unconscious.

the havanna housing estate excels from the list of housing estates. fame, stories of its strange everyday life, the miserable quality of its public spaces and buildings. seventeen thousand people call it as home. although they often deny if someone from the outside world asks them, friends, at an interview, here and there.

not everyone, but many. they like to live here. maybe out of sheer habit, because of friends and acquaintances around, or just simply taking the chances realisticly into account. small gardens, flowerbeds between concrete parapets, the weekly market attended also by ex-havanna residents, familiar faces, leisurely “longtimenotseen”-s.

care and carelessness, the difference between balconies and balcony rails, between the cars and the benches, the activities within and outside of the scope of individuals? opportunities. and hopefully more and more the work, with what we want to open up the field of possibilities against the loneliness and closure behind the badly insulated walls. with a few colours, on a few sunny afternoons.

zsuzsa kravalik