This is a video art that I specifically conceived to participate in the recently concluded Alternative Havana Biennial. With Vulgarly Classic, I wanted to do something more intense and personal, and where, as in almost all my work, I am the center of attention.
This video is an advance of a documentary in construction in which I will put forth the process of setting up my house studio for the recently concluded Alternative Havana Biennial. I will be showing my different photographic and audiovisual work.
My contribution took place in my own home/studio and involved an exhibition of videos and art, an art installation, a vast exhibition of my photography, a performance piece which didn’t take place because there were problems in coordinating it, but I did an improvisation.
This one-minute and six-second long short was the first class project of my most recent course in the Czech Republic, in March 2018. Making it was a unique and magical experience…
“Female and male” is the title of a short video found in the Weekly Package (audiovisuals sold in Cuba for downloading), which I normally buy every Tuesday. This type of material which is strongly homophobic made me sad and bothered me at the same time.
For a short time, I tried to focus on what was going on in Cuba and elsewhere around this musical phenomenon and its lyrics, which, in my opinion, nearly always belittle women in every aspect, generally-speaking.
I ask myself, if I as a citizen of this country I don’t have the right to read my writings wherever I want, to show my literature to whomever I like, without having to feel afraid of being sabotaged, violently arrested, or seen as an outcast…
Forgive me, for not being how you wanted me to be. Forgive me, for being honest and for feeling free when it came to showing what I think with pictures and words, without worrying about what the consequences could be.
You don’t realize that things have gone from bad to worse until the time comes in your life when, without really understanding it, you find yourself outside the eye of a hurricane, where there is no longer any calm and everything is pointing towards an imminent disaster, and worse still, you didn’t even see it coming.
The short film is dedicated to everyone who has needed to emigrate to find opportunities and try and prosper in another place. It is the second installment of something that was initially going to be a trilogy, and is dedicated to my friends and acquaintances.
