Can a Biennial Respect Difference in a Country that Represses Dissidence? On the Havana Biennial
Collective essay by Solveig Font, Coco Fusco, Celia Irina González, Hamlet Lavastida, Julio Llópiz Casal, and Yanelys Nuñez Leyva in e-flux, September 13, 2024.
We acknowledge that Cuba is not the only country with political prisoners that seeks to host a biennial; Turkey and China also fall into this category. But Cuba is the only one of these countries that continues to market itself as a radical political experiment aimed at eradicating inequality
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An updated penal code includes sanctions against any Cuban citizen that criticizes the government on social media: one influencer arrested in 2023 currently faces a possible ten-year sentence for calling for demonstrations on Facebook. In June of this year, the Cuban government announced that citizens could be stripped of their nationality for participating in “anti-socialist activity” anywhere in the world. The latest regulations for MIPYMES (Cuban private enterprise) prohibit independent cultural businesses such as galleries, concert venues, bookstores, libraries, and theaters.
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Despite the Havana Biennial’s purported respect for difference, Cuban artists Lázaro and César Saavedra’s performance that was slated for presentation at the Ciervo Encantado theater in July was just censored by the National Council of Theater Arts. And while the majority of the Cuban artists that spearheaded protests against state repression of independent cultural endeavors have been forced into exile, rapper Maykel Osorbo, the winner of two Grammy awards, continues to serve a nine-year sentence in the maximum security Kilo 8 prison in Pinar del Rio, while the Prince Claus Impact Award–winning performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara serves his five-year sentence in the maximum security prison of Guanajay. It is difficult for us as arts professionals whose lives and careers have been deeply affected by the machinations of the Cuban state in the sphere of culture, whose families have endured multiple forms of hardship, from material deprivation, repression, and imprisonment to exile, to not perceive the intentions behind the 2024 Havana Biennial as a cynical effort to orchestrate a simulation of creative autonomy and social commitment. The talents of young artists remaining on the island notwithstanding, the Ministry of Culture persists in its efforts to seduce foreign capital by trafficking in the myths of a long-dead revolution. With its showcasing of social practice projects situated in San Antonio de los Baños, where the largest protest in Cuban history began just three years ago, the 2024 Havana Biennial is being designed to deflect international attention away from our country’s persistent human rights abuses and its sustained effort to eradicate critical voices in Cuban culture. We do not seek to prevent the Cuban government from doing so, only to let the rest of the world know the truth that lies behind its mask.
