For Sandra Ramos—as for other artists and Cuban society as a whole—emigration has been a long-standing and potent aspect of life, and a government-issued passport is the embodiment of that desire. “The concepts of transitory identity and nomadic homeland have been present in my work since I began traveling outside Cuba,” she has said. In her series of artists’ books, Horizons, Ramos reproduced the pages of passports used by friends to emigrate from Cuba and superimposed on them images of the cities in which they settled. Blending past and present, Ramos created representations of imagined lives within the passport books.

Para Sandra Ramos —como para muchos cubanos—, la emigración ha sido un aspecto constante y desa- fiante de la vida, y un pasaporte simboliza ese deseo. “Los conceptos de identidad transitoria y patria nómada han estado presentes en mi trabajo desde que empecé a viajar al extranjero”, ha dicho. En su serie de libros de artista Horizontes, Ramos reproduce las páginas de los pasaportes utilizados por amigos suyos para emigrar, superponiéndoles imágenes de las ciudades donde luego se establecieron. Al mezclar pasado y presente, Ramos llena sus pasaportes con representaciones sus vidas imaginadas.