Osvaldo Yero investigates the relationship between the United States and Cuba. He uses irony and sarcasm in his selection of images and objects in his exhibited work Dreaming of Things American by. He combines clichés of Cuban and American material culture fetiches or souveniers found in stores or markets in Havana placed upon a wallpaper flag of blue stars and red and white stripes (the colors of the US and Cuban flag). These kitsch objects are of cast plaster fruits, or ornaments, or popular culture icons in both American, Soviet, and Cuban history. He poses Andy Warhol's icon of Marilyn Monroe dressed as a miliciana or female soldier against a plaster self portait painted in silver, resembling Lenin in profile. Plaster reproductions of famous Amercan symbols such as the game board painted by Jasper Johns, Love, Love, Love by Robert Indiana, and the Hollywood landscape by Ed Rucha might represent the quest for or accomplishment of American political and economic pursuits. The work projects American things onto those Cuban, with an undercurrent of longing, suggesting that Cubans are seduced by the superficial goodies the United States has to offer.

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Many Cuban artists have responded to the plight of the balseros--those who left Cuba on makeshift rafts called balsas. Kcho's exhibited installation, In Order to Forget, presents an homage to all those who risked their lives fleeing Cuba by sea. The kayak represents a craft normally used for fun, but pressed into service for the life-or-death journey. The sea of beer bottles, suggests that escape can take two forms: setting out to sea with a frail hope of survival, or escape through drunken oblivion. Kcho assembles his installations and sculptures from natural materials and found objects that reflect island life, such as waterlogged quays and abandoned boats. His art poignantly demonstrates invention as a means of survival. Migration from the island has been ongoing and, during certain periods of crisis when the prohibition to leave was lifted, concentrations of inhabitants have frequently and desperately departed. The departures, which began in the 1980s, peaked in 1994, earning the name "the crisis of the balseros". Following Castro's announcement that no boat leaving Cuba would be stopped, an estimated 20,000 Cubans fled in month on flimsy crafts made from inner tubes or scavenged materials. There are no reliable estimates of the number that died. Kcho work is not only nostalgic but a tragic monument to those who risked their lives and failed.