note: GUSANOS (“Worms” – derogatory Cuban slang for emigrants)
GUSANOS was a self-referential project that I began in 2010, while I was still living in Cuba. At that time, the island felt — and still feels — like a surreal world, with its own unique logics and illogical structures, vastly different from the Western world we live in today.
By then, my wife and I had already decided that we would leave the island and move to the United States (where we live now, thank God). I had an established career as an art photographer in Cuba, but I longed for broader horizons filled with freedom and hope—things the island simply doesn’t offer.
It was in this context that I began developing the project GUSANOS. In Cuba, gusano (“worm”) is a derogatory term used to describe those who leave the country, especially for the U.S. Interestingly, gusano is also the colloquial name given to a large canvas travel bag that many Cubans use to bring goods into the country when they return from abroad. Since I already saw myself as a “gusano” for wanting to emigrate and opposing the regime, I connected deeply with that metaphor.
I created and sewed a wearable version of the travel bag (which I still have today), and began performing actions wearing this “gusano suit,” which my wife documented in photographs. That’s how the first GUSANOS images were born, and they were later exhibited in galleries across Cuba.
As time went on, the idea evolved into a full installation. I began creating life-sized sculptures of these “gusanos”—half-man, half-suitcase figures—and invited sculptor Eder Arencibia and my brother, designer Roberto Rodríguez, to help me build a public space where these characters could “live.”
In 2012, we secured the permits to mount the installation on the façade of a colonial mansion on 17th Street, between B and C, in the Vedado district of Havana. The resin sculptures portrayed the gusanos in different existential states, occupying the entire façade: they were entering, exiting, greeting, hanging, collapsing—trying to assert an identity that the Cuban government had tried to erase.
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Self-portraits I, Feelings. 2010
Technique: Digital photography
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Self-portraits II, Feelings. 2010
Technique: Digital photography
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Self-portraits III, Feelings. 2010
Technique: Digital photography
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Self-portraits, Feelings. 2010
Technique: Digital photography
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Gusano I: a series of self-portraits of Nadal wearing the Gusano suitcase in public spaces. 2010
Technique: Digital photography of street performances.
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Gusano II: a series of self-portraits of Nadal wearing the Gusano suitcase in public spaces. 2010
Technique: Digital photography of street performances.
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Gusano III: a series of self-portraits of Nadal wearing the Gusano suitcase in public spaces. 2010
Technique: Digital photography of street performances.
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Gusano IV: a series of self-portraits of Nadal wearing the Gusano suitcase in public spaces. 2010
Technique: Digital photography of street performances.
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Text about GUSANOS by Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda
Click link below
https://nadalantelmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Dannys-Montes-de-Oca.-Omni-Zona-Franca-english.doc
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Work: GUSANOS (Public installation)
Location: Façade of a colonial house on 17th Street between B and C, Vedado, Havana, Cuba
Collaborators: Eder Arencibia (sculptor), Roberto Rodríguez (designer)
Description: Life-size resin sculptures portraying hybrid figures between humans and travel bags, exploring Cuban migrant identity.
Details of the GUSANOS installation
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The photographs documenting Nadal’s plastic actions —where he uses a briefcase ("worm") as a garment— have also been featured in several exhibitions.
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Historia de un Gusano was exhibited at the Fototeca de Cuba in 2012.
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Nadal and his wife Rosalia next to the GUSANOS suitcase used in the performative actions. 2012
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3 pictures of Worms werwe at The he echo of the Quotidian, NYLAT, New Yor. 2024
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Lidia Hernandez Tapia and a collector next to one of the works Gusanos
The he echo of the Quotidian, NYLAT, New Yor. 2024
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The he echo of the Quotidian, NYLAT, New Yor. 2024
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GUSANOS, review on BBC Mundo (Spanish), about the exhibition GUSANOS. web
Link BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18933175
