The Tree of a Thousand Voices Arrives in Havana, Cuba
Full of words, the 12-meter-high structure in Old Havana’s Plaza de Armas is a hymn to freedom and the power of literature.
By Natalia Lopez Moya (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Those who pass through Havana’s Plaza de Armas these days will come across a huge installation by French artist Daniel Hourdé.
The tree of a thousand voices extends its branches in the central space and, instead of leaves, displays an infinite number of book pages. Loaded with words, the ensemble, 15 meters high, is a hymn to freedom and the power of literature. But its foliage, with fragments of Lorca, Proust and Goethe, takes on another meaning in Cuba, a country marked by censorship and editorial dogma.
The texts, which hang like fruits of human knowledge and creativity, include a wide catalogue of poetry, narrative, art history and philosophy. The wind can shake the structure, shake the steel pages that creak and clink, creating a unique symphony on each occasion, but it cannot bring down the thick trunk that supports human creation. The gusts can barely beat the flowers, just as intolerance barely manages to hit literature but never uproot it.
Translated by Translating Cuba.