seven hundred meters

2023

In 2016, Cuba’s government, which tightly controlled access to information and technology, set up state-run Wi-Fi hotspots across Havana. Before that, news, culture, and trends from the outside world only trickled in slowly. Suddenly, teenagers had access to a flood of information, ideas, and global trends. Since most homes still don’t have internet, teens flock to the city’s 35 Wi-Fi hotspots. “700 meters” is the length of Calle G and Paseo del Prado, where the kids I photographed usually gather. For them, those 700 meters are the stretch of freedom and joy. In the future, it might also become the place of change.

Seven hundred meters is about these young people and their tight-knit circles of friends, who still believe in the power of their community. In their 20s and 30s, they stand as intermediaries between an ingrained socialist mentality and the increasingly restless, anxious Cuban mindset of today. Getting close to them was a fascinating, delicate journey into a loss of direction—a journey into the sad but beautiful connection between their realities and the country they were born into.

In 2025, I returned to Havana to photograph them again, but by then, many had left the country. The series I made about those who stayed—Because the sun may rise tomorrow—, is accompanied by intimate interviews with the individuals portrayed.

A zine version of the series was published in 2024 by INDA Gallery in Budapest.

main exhibitions:
2024: #Good morning bro, Gallery Inda, Budapest (curator: Zsolt Kozma)

main publications:
https://loeildelaphotographie.com/fr/lilla-szasz/