TROPICAL GOTH

Maria Isabel Rueda has been photographing the goth scene in places like Columbia, Mexico, and Cuba since the early 90s. She's turned her work into a collection of zines, the first of which, Tropical Goth, made me reconsider my position on the whole "goth" thing. Maria is currently working on the third installment, Tropical Black which will mainly focus on youth culture in Havana. I spoke with her about the current state of goth and why anyone should care enough to take pictures of it.

Vice: Howcome you're so focused on kids who are into goth crap?
Maria Isabel Rueda: At first I wasn't. I first started photographing the kids I really wanted to hang out with, whose lives I wanted to be part of. I wanted to get close to them and the photographs were a way of producing images that, to me, were very erotic. I started out taking Polaroids because I didn't know how to take photographs. Slowly I started to learn, and I produced a series called Reves, when ecstasy and rave was big in Columbia. These kids spent a lot of time working on their image, lots of them made their own clothes and they dressed up in a very special way. I photographed them in outdoor spaces in the middle of the city amongst nature, flowers, and colors.

I did my first exhibition with those portraits, and I started a sort of tradition of always including live music at my openings. All the guys I photographed were there standing next to their own pictures. It was as if we were bringing all the scenes in Bogota together in one place.

How did Tropical Goth come about?
The Tropical Goth collection started when I was stuck on what to do for my graduation show and this lesbian couple in big black dresses walked past me at the university. There was a mall in my neighborhood called Via Libre where the goths would get together on Fridays. Music and album covers were their influences and in those pre-internet days, was the only way of really referencing and researching the way goths looked. Basically, it was all guess work, we just didn't see that many pictures.

There's a big goth scene in Mexico too, right?
Yeah. I did my Crash pictures back in the 90s in Chopo, where the gothic scene is still really big. I also shot a lot of men from the gay goth scene there.

Nobody really cares how people dress in the west anymore, does that apply in a more conservative place like Colombia too?
People are slowly getting used to goths and that sort of thing. Post-internet, nothing can really shock anymore. Back then, goth was something you'd read about, or hear on a record, but you rarely saw it. People's peculiar interpretations of the style generated the weird hybrids you can see in my pictures. Going out dressed up in that way in Columbia was a clear message of opposition to something. Perhaps people couldn't work out what, or even really talk about what they opposed, but they knew their appearance was visually shocking. Everyone was regularly stopped and searched by the police.

Image from Tropical Goth

Your zine, Tropical God, has the Spanish byline - "If God was dark, everything would change."
"If God was dark, everything will change" are the lyrics from a salsa song that I love. Tropical God is the second issue of my zine after Tropical Goth, based on my travels across the Colombian coast, meeting mediums and witches, tales of stigmata and exorcists, going to churches, and meeting flagellants, etc. The idea was to show how people construct and believe in their own gods and the general idea that all that's dark has its counterpart in the light.

G Street, Havana

You're latest pictures from Havana aren't so much goth as a mishmash of everything.
Because it's a poor place, kids don't have private space in Cuba. Everything has to happen at parties and gigs on G Street, a road in central Havana that gets taken over by the city's youth every single night. The guys get really drunk and hang out until morning, and they dress in a mix of alternative western styles with a lot of goth and emo. Everything is censored in Cuba, the security forces are on almost every corner. I really identified with everyone on G Street, and how desperate they are to not conform.

What do you think of the New York/London goths?
I actually lived in London when I was 19, in Camden Town, which was home to a lot of goths. I was also in New York during that whole mid-90s Limelight period too but there wasn't anything really shocking about either. Nothing that didn't seem to be happening in Bogota at the Barbarie Bar.

Is there life left in the tropical goth thing?
Well, I'm working on two illustrated books--one about the secrets of a Colombian witch, and another named after Vivek, the guy I hired to drive me across India last year. The two of us got smashed on opium while we drove, and the book's going to be about the weird occult stuff we experienced. The sensuality, the ruined temples, and the strange relationship between the two of us. I'll also be be publishing my third zine Tropical Black, with the Havana material when I sort out the sponsors.

CASSIA TABATINI