Carlos Garaicoa’s hometown of Havana became the first city featured in his body of work surrounding themes of architecture, ruins, and utopia. In this series, he “assumed the fictitious identity of an architect whose mission was to renovate and restore buildings on point of collapse.” (Abelardo Mena Chicuri, ed., Cuban avant-garde: contemporary Cuban art from the Farber Collection, Gainsville, 2007, p. 110). Following Havana, he subsequently explored great metropolises like in New York, Valencia, and Minneapolis using these lenses. Despite international shift in perspective, Garaicoa’s work primarily focuses on Havana’s policies following the 1959 revolution that put new construction and preservation renovations in the city to a halt. These policies reduced Havana’s image of grandeur into crumbling symbols of social instability and disrepair. Long recognized internationally for his thought-provoking work, Garaicoa has exhibited extensively in Europe, the United States and Latin America. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Bronx Museum of Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, amongst others.