Ways of killing time is a project based on the circumstances surrounding the organisation of the masses during parades, demonstrations and commemorative events in the Plaza de la Revolución, Havana. To mark these events, vast numbers of people are brought in from the city’s outskirts: pupils from schools in the countryside, scholarship students, and labour organisations, in order to guarantee mass attendance. There is a significant difference in the number of hours the crowd has to wait – usually eight or nine times the length of the event – and the event itself, which usually lasts three or four hours.

What do these people do while they are waiting for the speeches and the activities to commence? The most curious thing for me are the ingenious structures made with the little flags that accompany the applause and greetings. These little paper flags are attached to a wooden stick and undergo a symbiosis caused by the circumstances. When people let their attention wander from the speeches, the flags are taken apart and they make countless figures and forms to keep themselves entertained (paper cups, doves, boats, pistols, rockets, fans,..) while they use the little stick to dig small mounds where they can sit and rest, or create podiums so that the little ones can see the rostrum over the crowd’s heads. When the event is over and the square deserted, all that remains is a kind of minimalist, spectral installation.