# Miguel Monck, Cuban designer who illustrates the New York Times from Ciutat Vella

**Date:** 10/25/2021

Life has changed completely for Miguel Monkc in these last two years. In short: two years ago Monkc regularly took the bus heading to Havana from Santa Fe, a common fishing village located west of the capital, which in the 1950s experienced its moment of splendor filled with wealthy homes.

Although they are barely 25 kilometers apart along the northern coast, it used to take him nearly two hours to get around to visit the university, his clients… Until two years ago Monkc's life unfolded between that route where the hands that would make this young man from Cuba quickly become one of the greatest promises of international illustration would overflow.

Two years ago, exactly two years and eight days ago, Monkc made his first trip abroad. Havana - Barajas - Atocha - Manises - Ciutat Vella.

But before all this, when Miguel Monkc would corner himself to draw barely lifting a hand off the ground, his family would dedicate phrases to him half compliment half prophecy: "there goes the artist!". Although also, randomly: "there goes the painter!". The artist remembers mom taking him to 'the houses of cultures' so he could let loose with his hand. "She never stopped taking me, never". The persistence for the boy who started drawing 'Pokémon', before those first oils arrived that are on the walls of the half of the house that belongs to his mother after his father and she separated and divided the home in two. On the walls hangs a drawing of a cat with a tail that resembles one of the posts that support the island's electrical wires.

His mom and his grandmother also didn't give up when the opportunity to enter a degree hung by a thread of improbability. Monkc had been preparing the tests to enter architecture. The same professor who was preparing him was doing the same for the design degree and, literally, that other world lay behind that door at the back of the classroom. Simple: attracted, he walked toward it, passed through and entered.

The day it was decided whether Monkc would gain access to the Superior Institute of Design of Havana, the grandmother, the mom and the aforementioned showed up in the university courtyard waiting for a woman to come out before a microphone to call the numbers that could cross the runway. The event dragged on. Monck, the artist, the painter, the one who was going to be an illustrator, took the path to the car to give up. Head down. The loss of all hope. Suddenly mom and grandmother run toward the car. His grandmother doesn't know what the design degree is but she cries and hugs him.

It's just the beginning of a chain of things-that-are-not-known. Once Monkc enters the degree he doesn't know what illustration is. Until in the second year a professor throws out: 'does anyone of you think you'll be an illustrator in the future?'. The future illustrator who doesn't know what illustration is raises his hand. 'Me'. He also didn't know he could make a living from it when just finishing university, a friend recommends him to the head of 'Neighborhood Journalism' ("Non-profit news organization located in Cuba"). He creates several illustrations for a special about the lack of water and the director, in order not to choose one over the others, ends up keeping Monkc, who now works from a distance as art director of the publication.

There are more things that are not known. The now illustrator also didn't know two years ago how he was going to buy new typefaces that require payment by PayPal or credit card, without having either option. His family also didn't know what that newspaper was in which Monkc's illustration appeared last summer with four women embodying unity, diversity, courage and empowerment, walking on two legs with fluttering feet.

"The New York Times?, is that a well-known newspaper?". Burdened by the time difference in which he acknowledged the email from the art director of the NYT, Monkc ran from his small room in Ciutat Vella to arrive at dawn at an assignment that had to look free, quick and spontaneous, accompanying a report on the July protests in Cuba.

It hasn't been said that Monkc didn't know anything about Valencia when he was applying to do a master's at the best schools in the world, when everyone accepted him and when for everyone he didn't have enough money to pay for the trinity of the trip, the visa and living expenses. In the end, from so much waiting, he saved up. One fine day he saw that they designated Valencia as something like the world capital of design for 2022. Maybe it's there, he thought. And he applied for the illustration master's at the city's Barreira school. They accepted him and everything was easy. The trip and living expenses yes, but the visa no. The same day he had his flight to Valencia, until just hours before the visa didn't arrive. All of that was two years ago.

When Monkc arrived he found a false very long and green river that left him "astounded". With people less cold than he suspected and who almost reach the 'limits of freshness' of Havana. He saw that illustration exhibitions filled up. And that from the room next to the living room in his house in the Carmen neighborhood he could be many things at once, in collusion with Quebec, where his international agency is, Anna Goodson.

In a rush, that well-known New York newspaper called at the door, Nature magazine, Dwell, Gràffica, Mr. Porter Post… From there he read how they said of him that "he doesn't play at being innocent, quite the opposite" (Luis Sicre, Art Advisor). From there he designed a flag -the 'flag of freedom'- with a white rose, a triangle and the green and black colors that waved as an emblem of the protests in Cuba.

Two years and some weeks ago he was catching the Santa Fe bus to Havana. Instead, the Sundays now, he guides his friends on a recurring satellite loop from the IVAM to the Centre del Carme, more local than the locals. Because drawing the city is equivalent to traversing it many times. Monkc is about to show the illustration for the Spanish embassy calendar in Cuba. He has been assigned the month of February and the content of the work has been recounted in this conversation. Although, like so many other things, it's still not known.