note: GUSANOS (“Worms” – derogatory Cuban slang for emigrants)
Worms (Gusanos) is a project developed from photographic self-actions carried out in Cuba, using a suitcase commonly known in popular slang as “gusano.” The work addresses the charged political and social connotations embedded in this object and term. In 2012, the project expanded into sculptural form through epoxy resin figures representing suitcase-bearing men, exhibited during the Havana Biennial. Photography and sculpture operate here as complementary registers, documenting and materializing a stigmatized figure shaped by migration, ideology, and survival. The project transforms a derogatory symbol into a physical and conceptual presence.
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.
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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. . .
Printed catalog of the Gusanos exhibition.
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Details of the GUSANOS installation
Details of the GUSANOS installation
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
