Neisser Yoel Gálvez Tabares, Pinar del Río, Cuba, 2025.

Sixteen-year-old Neisser Yoel Gálvez Tabares poses in fencing gear in Pinar del Río, Cuba, where he trains as an aspiring modern pentathlete despite failing facilities and intermittent electricity. Sport offers discipline, ambition and a brief passage beyond the island’s narrowing horizon. Part of YUMA, James Clifford Kent’s two-decade project on Cuban life, the portrait sits within a deepening crisis marked by blackouts, fuel shortages and disrupted transport as U.S. pressure tightens around the island’s energy supply. Made through sustained dialogue and trust, the series moves across portraits, interiors and street scenes to resist cliché and spectacle—offering a layered portrait of an island on the brink.