English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
For some weeks Havana has had its Biennial and as almost always in my little forgotten village life goes on between the tedium and mediocrity. Behind these airs of expositions and performances I can’t help but remember what happened in these parts a little after this particular cultural event in 2009. Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani … Continue reading “Taguayabón, Far From the Biennial / Mario Barroso”
14ymedio, Havana, 8 February 2024 — The Provincial Court of Artemisa rejected an application for parole for the Cuban artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, as revealed on Wednesday by art curator Claudia Genlui on her social networks. The leader of the San Isidro Movement was imprisoned in July 2021 and sentenced in … Continue reading “A Cuban Court Alleges that Otero Alcantara Is Not Ready for ‘Social Reintegration’”
Havana Times, Lynn Cruz, 17 July 2018 — Everybody knows that there has been a upswing of repression and censorship of artists here in Cuba. Within its institutions and recently, censorship of the film “Quiero hacer una pelicula” (I Want to Make A Movie) by Yimit Ramirez, during the previous edition of ICAIC’s Young Filmmakers’ Festival. … Continue reading “Persecution of Cuban Artists and Intellectuals Gains Legal Framework / Lynn Cruz”
Iván García, 28 May 2018 — In the faded kiosk, hanging on a piece of string, is the Granma newspaper from two days ago, a Juventud Rebelde (Rebellious Youth) also outdated, and a Bohemian magazine for the month of April. A thin lady with heavy-frame glasses, unties a bundle of the Communist Party organ and while counting … Continue reading “How Cubans Get the News / Ivan Garcia”
Lynn Cruz, Havana Times, 17 May 2018 — While high-ranking officials were driving their cars and locking themselves into air-conditioned offices, a group of artists realized a project (perhaps the most ambitious to date), the recently concluded #00 Havana Biennial. Outside of Cuba’s institutional establishment, it took place from May 5-15. Responses from state-led cultural … Continue reading “Cuban Youth Losing Their Fear / Lynn Cruz”
14ymedio, Havana, 12 May 2018 — The activist Iliana Hernandez, director of the television program Lente Cubano (Cuban Lens), was released on Saturday after being arrested on Friday when she tried to enter El Círculo gallery, where a show that is a part of the independent #00 Biennial currently taking place in Havana is on … Continue reading “Activist Iliana Hernandez Released from Jail”
The passage of Hurricane Rafael through Artemisa and other western provinces fueled the desperation of Cubans where the ’11J’ protests broke out in 2021 14ymedio, Yankiel Gutierrez Faife, San Antonio de Los Baños, 8 December 2024 — The protest of 11 July 2021 is still fresh in the memory of San Antonio de los Baños, … Continue reading “San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, From ‘Humor’ to ‘Horror’”
A hand has crossed out “Long live Cuba without communism” on the monumental ’Wooden Cloud’ installed in the Plaza Vieja in Havana 14ymedio, Pedro Espinosa, Havana, 23 November 2024 — At first glance it looks like a nest, from other angles it resembles an ark and there are those who see it as a mass … Continue reading “Censorship Erases the Desire for Freedom Written by Cubans in the Work of the German Martin Steinert”
Loaded with words, the 15-meter-high consortium is a hymn to freedom and the power of literature. 14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, 18 November 2024 — El árbol de las Mil Voces extends its branches in the centrally located space and, instead of leaves, displays an endless number of book pages. The collection, loaded with words and measuring … Continue reading “The Tree of a Thousand Voices Arrives at The Country with only one Growl”
The authorities did not report a date for the reopening of the section that goes from B to C street. 14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 29 September 2024 — With several barriers to divert traffic, a section of Havana’s iconic Malecón has been closed since Saturday. According to a post on social media from the … Continue reading “One of the Most Emblematic Sections of Havana’s Malecon Forced to Close Due to ‘Structural Damages’”
This Saturday night the floods began to recede but left behind a very worrying panorama of mud, dirt and material damage. 14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 23, 2024 — “I slept on the table because the bed got wet and I couldn’t put a sheet on the floor, it was all flooded,” this is … Continue reading “The People of Havana Hold Their Breath in the Face of a Forecast of More Rain for Sunday”
14ymedio, Clara Riveros, Miami, 25 February 2024 — “In Cuba we didn’t have air conditioning. Flies and cockroaches are everywhere. My grandfather had a hobby of rolling up the Granma newspaper to catch flies, we competed, I was a child, that entertained me.” The Havana artist Fabián Peña recently won a scholarship from the Cintas de Miami Foundation, an … Continue reading “Fabian Pena, the Cuban Artist Who Works With Flies and Cockroaches”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 8 February 2023 — On Tuesday, Cuban plastic artist Michel Mirabal presented his exhibition project at the National Museum of Havana, on a very current theme: “migrations in the world.” He will attend the next Venice Architecture Biennial with this same project. Mirabal, known as the painter of hands and flags, … Continue reading “Cuban Artist Michel Mirabal Takes the Immigration Issue to the Venice Biennale”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 9 November 2022 — To the grave situation in the sectors of economy, food, finance, energy, politics, social justice, migration and health — all from which Cuba is suffering — we may add a new crisis that could deliver the final death blow to a fading, crumbling model. Because if … Continue reading “The Culture Crisis of the Cuban Revolution”
14ymedio, Havana, 28 October 2022 — Cuban artist and professor Tania Bruguera has been selected to join the U.S. National Academy of Design, along with 16 other figures from the world of architecture and the arts. The institution, which made its decision last Saturday, defines Bruguera in a statement as “a performance artist who seeks … Continue reading “Cuban Artist Tania Bruguera Enters the National Academy of Design of the United States”