It may be challenging to combine in one picture an architectural inspiration with themes such as culture and traditions, while giving to the composition also a fashionable flair.
Photographer Frank Thiel has managed to do so in his "Quinceañeras" series, that will be exhibited at Blain Southern in Berlin (Potsdamer Straße 77–87) from this weekend (until 16th June).
Born in Kleinmachnow, in the former East Germany in 1966, Thiel moved to West Berlin in 1985, first studying photography and then enrolling at the University of the Arts.
He is known for his monumental photographs chronicling Berlin's topographical and architectural transformation after Germany's reunification, but he also developed further the transformation theme studying other places such as the glaciers of Patagonia.
Extensive research remains the starting point for all his projects as proved also by the "Quinceañeras" series. Thiel worked indeed with his Cuban team and the families of the young women portrayed for two years to create this series, shooting the images in the girls' neighbourhoods in Havana and ending up visiting and picturing all fifteen municipalities of the Cuban capital.
Marking the return to portrait photography of Thiel for the first time in over 20 years, the "Quinceañeras" images look at the tradition of lavish coming-of-age celebrations for a young woman's fifteenth birthday in Cuba.
Across Latin America, a girl's fifteenth birthday is an important rite of passage marking the transition into adulthood. Traditions may vary from country to country, but one thing remains the same, the iconic portrait of the girl being celebrated, usually shot by a professional photographer and showing an idealised fantasy aiming at preproducing the look of mainstream fashion magazines or a sweet and dreamy fairytale.
Thiel's portraits look rather different: the girls have a static pose, they look at the camera and radiantly smile with their hands on their hips in their brightly coloured tiered and ruffled gowns with bejewelled bodices and tiaras that make them look like classic Disney princesses, but the backdrop behind them varies.
One girl is standing in front of a pool, another looks like a goddess as she fiercely stands surrounded by majestic trees in a tangled forest. In some cases there's a dilapidated building, an unadorned brutalist concrete structure or a geometrical patterned wall behind the young women.
Daniela Lucrecia Márquez Rivero defiantly stands in front of an abandoned department store in Havana's centre, the sign behind her ominously reading Fin de Siglo (End of the Century).
The buildings create a stark visual contrast with the colourful attire donned by the girls, the romanticism of their dresses is almost shattered in some cases, while at the same time the image is full of power.
The young women in Thiel's pictures may indeed be princesses emerging from the debris and still standing after a major apocalypse, or in world in constant movement, as proved by the people waiting for their local public transport behind one of the girls photographed.
The quince tradition in Cuba becomes therefore for Thiel a metaphor for a culture in flux with the young women growing up while a heritage-rich city is radically changing or even decaying.
These visually striking yet intimate portraits hint at an uncertain future in which architecture, the transitory moment and socio-political realities are combined together.
Hopefully in a few years' time Thiel will go back and take new pictures of the girls and we will discover that, while only some of them will have turned into fairy-tale princesses, all of them will have transformed into brave, determined and strong women.
All images by and copyright Frank Thiel
Daniela Lucrecia Márquez Rivero, La Habana, Centro Habana, Colón, Tacón, 2015
Damay y Yamay Gómez Hernández, La Habana, Plaza de la Revolución, Nuevo Vedado, 2015
Beatriz Maricé Darna García, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, 2016.
Melany Linares Díaz, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, La Puntilla, 2015
Gabriela León Greenup, La Habana, Cerro, Latinoamericano (Carraguao), 2016
Naomi Francisca Dangel Rodriguez, La Habana, Playa, Kohly, 2015.
Maria Carla Hidalgo Fernández, La Habana, Playa, Cubanacán, 2015
Dailys López Alejo, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, 2016
Lisandra de la Caridad Rodríguez Ramayo, La Habana, Arroyo Naranjo, Mantilla, 2016
Donna Gladys Machado Sánchez, La Habana, Plaza de la Revolución, Rampa, 2016
Aurora Lawton de la Caridad Tamayo Genes, La Habana, Centro Habana, Dragones, Monserrate, 2015
Claudia Sholans Peña Gonzáles, La Habana, La Lisa, Versalles – Coronela, La Corbata, 2016
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