Havana Case Study was the second in a series of installations that used American diplomatic architecture as a lens through which to analyze US international relations. The exhibition examined the US embassy program’s attempt to represent the aspirations of the government through architecture, and explored how both the function and meaning of embassy buildings have changed over time. The centerpiece of the exhibition imagined an architectural exhibition on the embassy building as presented in the late 1950s. The artist framed details from this period in a complex display of architectural models, photographs, and archival documents, and overlaid these views with more recent photographs and newspaper clippings that report on the many uses the building has served—mostly for propaganda purposes—since the Cuban revolution. Installed on the terrace outdoors, Gower’s monumental sculpture Balcony (2016) was a 1:1 scale outline of the ambassador’s balcony—a symbol of diplomatic stalemate and its political and economic fallout.

Curated by Jacob Proctor