Author: Yanelys Nuñez

“Now, everybody wants to touch on the subject of the US,” a fellow artist notes. “It’s because there’s no way of isolating yourself from it,” responds a colleague.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write this article. Perhaps because I’ve had too many emotions running through my mind recently: anger, anxiety, disappointment, discomfort. Feelings which haven’t allowed me to reflect calmly upon the situation.

We were carrying a two-meter-tall, cardboard house. We only had a few blocks to walk to reach Esquina de Tejas, where the bus would pick us up. It was the opening day of the Puente Sur National Performance and Installation Day.

What people thought would be the artistic event of the year was nothing other than a run-of-the-mill exhibition in the Cuban capital. The first opening of Galeria Continua (“Continuous Gallery”) was not as spectacular as many had expected.

On November 28, 2015, on an invitation from Cuban visual artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, a group of friends and colleagues offered the artist’s wife a unique anniversary gift.

I still haven’t managed to let go of the anger or overcome the surprise. While strolling down a street in Old Havana next to a foreign friend of mine, a police officer stopped me to ask me the most ludicrous questions I’ve heard.

Cuban visual artist Leandro Soto (Cienfuegos, 1956), renowned performer who left the country during the Special Period exodus, returns to us with the beguiling aura of a gypsy. (6 photos)

People frequently talk about the garbage left on river banks, coastal areas and lakes, but we seldom look past the first impression this makes on us, to the evidence of human activity it reveals. Nature, of course, is not at all grateful for these kinds of practices, but artists can rummage through any sea of waste to find vestiges of life.

The exhibition titled Nota al pie (“Footnote”) landed in Havana’s Espacio Abierto gallery rather spontaneously. We didn’t have the time normally required for this kind of project, but the proposal seemed attractive to us when curator Carlos Gamez spoke to us about it.