Alexandra P. Gelbard
Research Collaborator, Curator, and Coordinator of the Cabildo de Regla Media Team.
Welcome to the Cabildo de Regla Digital Archive! This digital humanities website houses the visual archive, a data visualization map of the archival images, public scholarship essays, and information about our artistic exhibitions. This site creates an autonomous space for the Cabildo de Regla to present its archival images and information in a way that is accessible but still protects the images and maintains opacity of the Lucumí religious practice. Our terms of use can be found here.
As curator of this digital humanities site and coordinator of the media team, my approach to the creation of this archive is grounded in my scholarly approach and positionality, that is, how i see and am seen in the world. I am a sociologist and interdisciplinary social scientist grounded within African Diaspora Studies and Du Boisian Sociology with a Ph.D. in Global and Sociocultural Studies (sociology track) from Florida International University. I am also an initiated Iyaocha and practitioner of the African-inspired Cuban religious practices. With over two decades of research experience in Cuba, my work focuses on African Diaspora community formation and the relationship to religion and culture by focusing on Cuba’s street processional tradition descended from cabildos de nación. For more details on how I came to be invited to participate on this project, please see the essay: “ The Process of Re-Initiation: 2015-2019″
During my initial meeting with the Cabildo de Regla organizers, they expressed a need for the creation of a visual archive to document the process of the cabildo processional’s re-initiation. With the guidance of the Eggun, I began forming a team of women documentary photographers and filmmakers whose perspective and work centered the integrity, dignity, and representation of Black women and the African Diaspora: Amberly Alene Ellis Rodríguez of Film for the People and Ained Cala Rodríguez of Cala Visual. Together, we created the foundational images that inaugurated this archive from 2016-2023. For more on the role of photography and approach to the creation of these images, please refer to the essay, “Photography and Knowledge Production in the Cabildo de Regla: Methodological Considerations”
