Havana: Experimental Photography
Trip Summary
Led by Cotton Miller and Ira Kononenko
Dates
Dec. 13 – 20, 2025
Group Size
9 People
Activity Level
Moderate, some walking with stairs.
Price
$5,650 (double occupancy) – Single Supplement: $350
Workshop Details
The Art of Seeing
This brand new program is about engaging deeply into an artistic culture and rediscovering the joy of making. With Cotton Miller and Ira Kononenko as mentors, participants will blend craft and creativity into works that feel both personal and timeless.
© Ira Kononenko
Inspired by Havana
During this hands-on week our group will learn to prepare light-sensitive surfaces and experiment with drawing, collage, plants, and simple chemistry to create physical prints through camera-less photography using historical processes such as cliché-verre, cyanotype, and anthotype. Participants will take home unique handmade prints, practical knowledge of a variety of processes and inspiration from an incredible array of Cuban artists.
Experimental Photography with Contemporary Masters
Under artist Cotton Miller’s expert guidance participants explore how to fuse original concepts into thoughtful imagery. Cotton’s work bridges historic and digital techniques, demonstrating how the past and present coexist in a single frame or print.
He is joined by Cuban visual artist Ira Kononenko whose practice highlights experimental and low-impact methods, using expired materials, handmade techniques, and sunlight as part of the photographic process. Together they will share a variety of hands-on techniques designed to help photographers visually interpret Cuba.
© Cotton Miller
© Ira Kononenko
Time to Create
Learn the experimental printing techniques cliché-verre, cyanotype, and anthotype . These alternative processes rely on simple materials, light, and time, encouraging a different way of making images. The practice emphasizes improvisation, sustainability, and the creative use of expired or found elements.
* Cliché-verre: A hybrid of drawing, collage, and photography. Participants intervene transparent surfaces by scratching, painting, or layering materials to make unique negatives that can later be printed.
* Cyanotype: Using iron salts and sunlight, participants prepare their own papers and print with plants, objects, or their cliché-verre negatives to produce deep blue photograms.
* Anthotype: Made with pigments extracted from plants, this process creates delicate images that respond to light and time. Participants experiment with their own emulsions and print with both natural elements and the negatives they have created.
Creative Encounters in Havana
We step inside studios, workshops, and cultural spaces to meet Cuban painters, photographers, printmakers, textile artists, and musicians. Each encounter reveals Havana’s creative resilience and its ability to turn everyday materials into powerful expressions of identity.
© Jennifer Spelman
Special Access Visits
The Experimental Graphics Studio founded in Havana in 1962 is still thriving today. Old printmaking techniques are preserved by the current designers and the studio produces lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and screen prints. Here the group will be received for a special demonstration and time to create a piece of art.
ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte) is a magic space and the perfect grounds for creative growth. We’ll be met by a member of the Photography Department and spend time interacting with students and viewing their innovative projects.
Havana Boutique Stay
Our home in Havana will be a comfortable boutique hotel in contemporary Vedado, not far from the sea. This welcoming space balances charm and comfort, offering a quiet retreat after full days spent exploring Havana’s vibrant neighborhoods and room for engaging in hands-on creative work.
Itinerary Highlights
- Find inspiration through daily photo excursions and interaction with Cuban curators, photographers, painters, printmakers, musicians, and textile artists
- Learn from hands-on demonstrations in cyanotype, anthotype, and cliché verre.
- Receive expert photographic guidance to help refine your visual voice.
- Enjoy a special visit to ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte), Cuba’s premier art university.
- Take inspiration from demonstrations and time to create within the iconic Taller de Graficas Studio.
- Return home with a unique body of handmade prints and photographic items.
- Experience unparalleled artistic and travel support from our expert OWS Cuba team.
Our Instructors
Cotton Miller
Instructor
Website: cottonmiller.com
Ira Kononenko
Instructor
Ira Kononenko is a Cuban visual artist based in Havana. She works across photography, botany, and landscape practice. Her practice highlights experimental and low-impact methods, using expired materials, handmade techniques, and sunlight as part of the photographic process. She has taught cyanotype, anthotype, and cliché-verre workshops at Fototeca de Cuba, Galería Continua, and Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. She holds a degree in Visual Arts and a Master’s in Contemporary Symbolic Production and Sociocultural Mediation from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA).
Travel Legally
This program is conducted under the U.S. Treasury Department’s General License for People-to-People Educational Exchange (Title 31 CFR § 515.560). Every day is a full schedule of meaningful, human-centered interactions designed to foster cultural understanding and support Cuban civil society.
Gallery
