Alamar Express Lab

8/9/2019 Alamar Express Lab

1/96

proto-type arte contemporanea

Documents

V

collana diretta da Simonetta Luxcoordinata da Domenico Scudero


2/96

direttore

Simonetta [email protected]

direttore responsabilePietro Barcellona

Coordinamento editorialeDomenico Scudero

CaporedattorePatrizia Mania

redazioneLucrezia Cippitelli Elisabetta Cristallini Fabrizio LemmeAugusto Pieroni Domenico Scudero

[email protected]

progetto graficoInes [email protected]

impaginazioneGangemi Editore

editoreGangemi EditorePiazza San Pantaleo 4, 00186 Roma, tel 066872775 fax 0668806189www.gangemieditore.itper conto di L.H.O.O.K. Via Reggio Emilia 52, 00198 Roma fax 0649910365

Registrazione presso il Tribunale di Roman. 632 del 21/11/02

l u x f l u x proto-type arte contemporanea w w w . l u x f l u x . n e t

Supplemento speciale al periodico

Collana di strumenti per larte contemporanea

2006-2016 Associazione Culturale InventatiPermission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document

under the terms of the "Creative Commons Attribuzione 2.5 Italia"; with

Front-Cover Texts: Associazione Culturale Inventatihttp://www.inventati.info, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

Quest'opera stata rilasciata sotto la licenza Creative Commons

Attribuzione 2.5 Italia.

Per leggere una copia della licenza visita il sito web

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/it/

Questa testo stato sviluppato allinterno del progetto "Alamar Express

Lab" effettuato dall'Associazione Culturale Inventati e finanziato con

il contributo dalla Commissione Europea (CDC/2005/111-481)

Questo testo viene distribuito su internet allindirizzohttp://www.inventati.info


3/96

Lucrezia Cippitelli

Alamar Express Lab

poetry and public spaces

in la havana


4/96

Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, Universit di Roma La Sapienza

Associazione Culturale InventatiAlamar Expresswww.inventati.org

Commissione europea CubaFinanz con il contributo della Commissione Europeaprogetto: CDC/2005/111-481

Alamar Express Lab is a cultural cooperation project which took place in Alamar, easternperiphery of La Havana, in 2006 and 2007.The project has been realized by Associazione culturale Inventati from Florence with OmniZonafranca from Alamar and curated by Lucrezia Cippitelli.The Lab has been financed by the Delegation of the European Commission in Cuba andsupported by MLAC - Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea of Rome.This book is the final step of this long term cooperation project, started during summer2005 in La Havana from a research on activism, performance and public spaces in Cubaand the organization of the participation of Omni Zonafranca to the IX Havana Biennal(which took place half year later, from March 2006).

Thanks:

Omni & Inventati (Daniele Cirio, Jacopo Mariani, Paolo De Rosa, Katia Favilli, AlessandroMartinez), Tania Bruguera, Ren Francisco, Minerva Romero Regalado, Mauro DAgati,Laura Carpini, Simonetta Lux, Domenico Scudero, Irma Arestizbal, Alberto Virella, HectorFrometa, Raul Ferrera Balanquet, Ogino Knauss, Miguel Rojas Zotelo, Dannys Montes deOca and the curatorial collective of Havana Biennal, Jorge Fernandez, Massimo Carboni,Massimo Luccioli, Leandro Noferini, Ine poppe, Sam Nemeth, Mauricio Ballas, Eligio y sufamilia completa, Robertico, Robert Stenilechner, Marie Augouy, Micro X (hoy T10), LazaroSaavedra, Luis o Miguel, Jons todos, Gonzalo Vidal, William G. Pott, Yaniris, Ignacio Nieto,Ricardo Vega, Italo Tello, Maria Fernandez; Laura, Paolina, Marta and Panama; DanieleRecchione.


5/96

Alamar Express Lab 8

The context: Vasos comunicantes, the IX Biennial of Havana,Laboratorio Alamar Express 12

The Zone: Alamar 24Omni newsreel Bistec the Red 28

The protagonists: Omni Zonafranca 32

A meeting with Omni Zonafranca 40

Glossary 55

APPARATAOmni Zonafranca 63

Alamar 65

Haciendo Taller : Vasos Comunicantes 66

Poesia sin fin / Alamar Express 68

Sobre la documentacin 70

Il contesto: la IX Bienal de La Habana 74La Zona: Alamar 77

I protagonisti: Omni Zonafranca 78

Lincontro con Omni Zonafranca 81

Glossario 86

Associazione Inventati 94

Table of Contents


6/96

ARCHITETTURE DEL BIANCO

Alamar, march 2006: the first meeting of Inventati with Omni Zonafranca.


7/96

CON L'ARTE, DA DISABILE A PERSONA

ALAMAR EXPRESS LAB


8/96

8

Alamar Express Lab

Between march 2006 and September 2007, a collective of independentartists from a periphery of La Havana (Omni Zonafranca) and an activistcollective from Italy (Inventati), gave birth together to Alamar Express Lab.A space where activism in public spaces and networking attitude mergedinto an experiment: to bring cheap technology and the skills to use it in acreative way to a peripheral community of a Cuban suburbia, in order toimprove social communication.During the first meeting, a month and a half of a permanent workshop inAlamar between March and April 2006, Omni and Inventati shared

practices and attitudes: performance and social work in the neighbourhood(Omni) and net based activism (Inventati). Attitudes and practicesdeveloped in different areas and social context, but linked to the samesocial and civic par ticipation mean. The mix of both approaches melted inan experiment that gave Omni the possibility to interact with mediaproduction and expand their field of action.The meeting and foundation of the Lab took place during the IX HavanaBiennal and during the first participation of Omni to this groundbreakinginternational art event. For the first time after more than a decade of use of

art and poetry in public spaces as element to improve social cohesion, Omnigot the possibility to step in the official art world. The participation to theBiennal and the project realized with Inventati opened to further possibilitiesof expansion: the Lab developed Omnis practice in Alamar, gave itscomponents the possibility to share with their community tools & skills, builtup a multimedia archive with 12 years of documentation and finallyexpanded to new networks the activities of the group with the release of awebsite. The biennal gave Omni visibility and international relevance ascollective of artists, recognised by curators and art critics. Omni Zonafrancais now facing an intense period of reevaluation of its story. Stronglysupported in its social and countercultural context, well known abroad

thanks to years of connections with art practitioners from all over the world(often arrived in Alamar looking for them after somebody suggested: if yougo to La Habana you HAVE to meet Omni), the collective has been at thesame time accused by part of the Cuban establishment of being a politicalorganization rather than a group of ar tists. This marginalization shows aproblem difficult to resolve. If artists use the Zona Franca (the free space)granted to art in order to act in their own social context, who will support


9/96

9

them if their practice is not easy to translate into the international Art Sytemand if local cultural policy finds them not easy to classify?This book is the last step of the project developed in Alamar byAssociazione Inventati, after 18 months of construction and expansion of

the Lab and organization of local activities in Alamar (screenings in publicspaces, shot of video or set up of multimedia project for other artists,workshops, the edition of a newsreel (Boletn), production of videos,organization of an archive etc).The book aims to define Omni Zonafranca artistic practice, which focuseson improving the human side of social behaviours using Art and Poetry. Ina society which grew poorest and sad and dehumanized after the Periodo

Especial (a situation so well described in Pedro Juan Gutierrezs Trilogiasucia de La Habana), to improve human relations means to construct elHombre Nuevo (the new Man), whose behaviours are not based onmaterial needs (often fake needs imported with the tourism) nor fulfilledwith being an apathetic Revolucionario. Using street style attitude andlanguage and practicing humanity in social relations, Omni shows that thereis another possible way of existing, based on common needs, commoncultural and historical background and above all, common mankind.

ALAMAR EXPRESS LAB


10/96

Yasser Castellano, decoration of a square of Alamar.


11/96


12/96

The context: Vasos comunicantes, the IX Biennial of Havana,Laboratorio Alamar Express

Dinamicas de la cultura urbana (Dynamics of urban culture) was the subtitleof the ninth edition of the Havana Biennial, which during March-April of2006 dragged out a conventional program, in sharp contrast to the vivacityof past editions. The title seemed to promise vivacious actions taking placein spaces generally not connected with contemporary art (the city, thestreet with its social spaces, public transport). On the contrary the ninthedition hosted a series of somewhat tired events, most of them realized ininstitutional art spaces. One of these events was the main show at the

Morro Cabaa, the XVI Century fortress of the city and central exhibitionspace of the Havana Biennial. Photos and videos dedicated to the urbanspaces of various artists, particularly Latin American, could be seen hungon the walls. What is dynamic about that? Even taking into account theeconomic difficulties that the Havana Biennial has always been forced toface (and therefore also in this ninth edition), the Dynamics of urban cultureshowed that there is a profound necessity for renovation. A renovationstarting with a revision of the model of international periodical exhibitions,

12

The Morro Cabaa.


13/96

on which the Biennial has molded itself since its first edition in 1984(despite being opposed to this model). This need was even recognized by

the curatorial collective from the Centro Wilfredo Lam during the days ofthe vernissage.

Starting in the Nineties, during the Periodo Especial (the tough economiccrisis that shook the island after the fall of the Berlin wall and theconsequential cut in economic support from what would become theformer USSR), the Cuban artistic scene displayed an intellectual and criticaldynamism that would prove difficult to keep within the islands borders.

One only needs to think of the generation of Carlos Garaicoa, TaniaBruguera, Ren Francisco, Los Carpinteros and Kcho, to name but a few,that since then have exhibited at the most important international events,from the Venice Biennale to Documenta in Kassel.A wave of energy had shaken the artistic context of the island. Theelements of this wave were a combination of the necessity tocommunicate and break through the boundaries (that sprouted from thedeep crisis of the Periodo Especial), and a cultural tradition of conceptualart that had involved the educational institutes (the conceptual and militant

THE CONTEXT

13

Amaury Pacheco, David Escalona, Luis Eligio Prez M. Cafria, Pasarela, exhibition orga-nized during Haciendo Taller, Vasos Comunicantes, Omnis participation to the IXHavana Biennal.


14/96

school of Luis Camnitzer, that was present in Havana during the crucialyears of the eighties, who also taught at the ISA, the higher institute of art).These elements, along with the Havana Biennials aim of unhinging thesystem of international contemporary art, were a powerful fuel for the

Cuban ar t system. The Nineties, whilst being a very hard period, proveduseful for Cuban art. Especially considering the favorable historicalmoment; the international art scene was all of a sudden particularlyreceptive to ar t coming from outside the West.After ten years, in its ninth edition, the Havana Biennial showed anexhaustion of this dynamism that was born in a period of crisis, which haddeveloped both as a self-criticism and a criticism of the Western system.The heavy commercialization of Cuban art abroad also contributed to thisdecadence; backed by the government, which apart from selling the world

a positive image of Cuba, also profits from the high taxes paid by theartists living on the island. The energy and hard work of a generation, aswell as the dynamic efforts of the Biennial that had made a virtue ofnecessity, seemed to be completely exhausted.

The tradition of artists using public spaces in Cuba has historical roots thatgo back further than its formalization by the Havana Biennial in 2006. Oldergroups cannot be ignored, for instance;Arte Calle, Pur and Punto, who werealready historicized by critics such as Gerardo Mosquera and Luis

ALAMAR EXPRESS LAB POETRY AND PUBLIC SPACES IN LA HAVANA

14


15/96

Camnitzer; the Grupo Aenema led by Lazaro Saavedra; the D.U.P.P. (Desdeuna pratica pedagogica) of Ren Francisco; the performances of TaniaBruguera during the Nineties (and her Catedra Arte de Conducta asextension of this practice). It was Ren Francisco who, in the last few years,has been the creator of one of the more interesting public space projects:

the Trilogia del Romerillo. Here, in a marginal and extremely poorneighborhood, the artist realized the restoration and facelift of three of thepoorest and most fragile houses. Francisco asked the inhabitants ofRomerillo themselves to choose who was most in need to help, after a longperiod of identification on their part. The videos and photographsdocumenting the restoration became works for galleries, biennials and

exhibitions; from their sale Francisco continues with the project ofrestoration and improvement of daily living spaces.El patio de Nin is a videoin which one such intervention, the reconstruction of a courtyard belonging

to an old lady that lives in the neighborhood, Mrs. Nin, is documented.Despite the example of Francisco, and despite the tradition of using publicspaces in recent Cuban artistic culture, as a matter central to thought andaction, there was very little dynamism or radical urbanism in this Biennialnamed Dynamics of urban culture.To find something in which public spaces and their social context played a

serious part, visitors had to pass through the tunnel that leads from theseafront of the city, the Malecon, to Habana del Este, the eastern periphery.

THE CONTEXT

15

A big party for Alamarpeople in OmniZonafranca studioduring Haciendo Taller,Vasos Comunicantes,Omnis participatio tothe IX Havana Biennal.


16/96

Here, in Alamar, the international public was forced to immerse itself in acompletely unexpected context, so much so that many people spoke of abiennial inside the biennial or a counter-biennial. The reason being thathere there was a month of dynamic and disorientating activities in publicspaces that countered the static exhibitions of the Morro Cabaa.The creators of this event entitled Haciendo Taller : Vasos comunicantes, was

the collective Omni Zonafranca, a group of artists and poets not


16

Ren y Ren, DavidEscalona, Luis EligioPrez e AmauryPacheco play oldtypewriters during theperformance festivalEnjoy!, event organizedby the artist JuanRivero, for the IXHavana Biennal.


17/96

appreciated by the establishment, but nonetheless firmly routed in theirneighborhood since the mid-nineties. The par ticipation of the group, whichup until this period had been knowingly ignored (if not opposed) by theofficial Cuban cultural circuit, was the result of a series of events. In

July/August of 2005, whilst the curatorial collective of the Havana Biennialmet to conclude the program for the ninth edition, I was researchingartistic collectives, activism and public spaces in practices of contemporary

THE CONTEXT

17

In the next pages:

Comunik't, performancein the main market ofAlamar durinoHaciendo Taller: Vasoscomunicantes. Omniclean and decorate theexternal and innerspace of the marketthat will host theperformance.


18/96

Cuban art. For a number of years I had been in contact with the Omnigroup and at the same time I knew the curatorial collective of the CentroWilfredo Lam, because of my doctoral research on the Havana Biennial.My presence during preparations seemed to me to be an incredibleopportunity: a biennial that wanted to focus on Dynamics of urban culturecould no longer pretend not to know the Omni group and had to finallydecide to invite them. So I proposed this idea to Dannys Montes de Oca,

the curator of the theoretical event of the Biennale, who, in July 2005, I hadaccompanied on a visit to the studio of the Omni group in Alamar. After afew weeks of negotiations and diplomacy the Biennial decided to acceptOmni, with its eccentric uncontrollability and tempestuous past. I got anexplanation of the establishments point of view on the topic: its better

that we include Omni rather than let some foreigner appropriate them.The ten years of activity spent nurturing alternative culture to changereality had served for Omni to become known as the enfant terrible andfor this reason to be forgotten. Now there was the risk that somebody


18


19/96

from abroad would publicize their story, it would have been better toopen the doors of official culture to them.Omni (with the support of the informed cultural office of the SpanishEmbassy, then led by Alberto Virella) had recently self-produced anddistributed a clamorous CD,Alamar Express. It brought together soundsand noises from the city of Alamar, poetry and stories from its streets; thewhole Omni universe imagined, written, played, performed, recorded andpost-produced by the collective. At the Biennial, according to the curatorial

teams plan, they would have presented an installation in one of the roomsof Morro Cabaa: the CD played on a loop in the room, with images andobjects transported from the world of Omni into the gallery; a perfect

mixed media installation, still very much in vogue in the biennialized world.Omni, after carefully reading the project, refused to participate in thisoverly obvious manner, proposing, in a wise move, to reverse the game.Why mummify a living practice, which is nur tured by social spaces, bymonotonously exhibiting documentation hung on a wall? Why box

THE CONTEXT

19


20/96


20


21/96

THE CONTEXT

21

themselves in? Better to participate in a way in which the gathered culturalpublic would find themselves directly in the middle of the context that

justifies and gives life to the existence of the group:Omnis participation would take place in Alamar and they would organizea month of events in their neighborhood. This mechanism moved thespectators from the official exhibition to the outskirts, far from the touristicHabana Vieja. The series of events proposed were the point of arrival of

ten years of intense do it yourself activism in the public and social spacesof that distant and outlying neighborhood, so different to the romantic and

touristic image of the Cuban capital.Omni presented themselves, their way of working, their tensions and theircity (Alamar). To the static nature of the official events, Omni proposed thestrength and truth of a work carried out with and within its own community.Omni represented Alamar in Alamar, to its own inhabitants and to theexternal visitors: a strong operation of self-narration and self-assertion.


22/96

Alamar from the coast.


23/96


24/96


24

Concerts, poetry readings, performances and interventions in theneighborhoods public spaces were planned under the label of the Biennial:

this time Omni got the financial support, recognition and the institutionsblessing, to do what they had been doing by themselves for a decade.

The Zone: Alamar

East Havana: 300 thousand inhabitants, a highway that connects its differentspirits, few services or links to the centre and little infrastructure.Halfway between the baroque and touristy Havana and the beaches of the

east, which come before the splendors of Varadero, the Alamar district ispart of Eastern Havana. A city within the city, separated from the historicpart by a tunnel, beyond which begins a world which ayuma (a disparagingstreet-slang term for tourists or foreigners) has little chance of seeing, ifnot through the window of a non-stop taxi ride from the centre to thebeach. Alamar is what can be seen from the window: a few hundred

thousand inhabitants divided into twenty-five zones, constructed betweenthe seventies and mid-eighties.In this area the urban expansion of the Cuban capital peaked and was at the


25/96

THE ZONE: ALAMAR

25

Yasser Castellano (above) and David Escalona. The decoration of public spaces and

streets of Alamar during Haciendo Taller, Vasos Comunicantes.


26/96

height of its decadence. It was built by theMicrobrigadas, groups of workerstemporarily transferred by the government to work on the countrys mostimposing project of social housing expansion. The period of building wasinterrupted by the economic crisis that followed the fall of the Berlin wall.Alamar is a mental state, the anti-Havana. While Habana Vieja is becomingDisneyfied, with its colonial streets and constant flux of tourism, Alamar is

the antithesis: dilated space and time; rationalist buildings separated by theflowing arteries that connect the different Zones; agricultural areas; a river;vast disused military zones; a crumbling cement covered and decadentseafront from which one can contemplate the areas and phases of theneighborhoods construction.

The story of the birth and evolution of Alamar is the physicalmaterialization of the design and failure of Utopia. Yet at the same time it is

the exemplification of the paradox and peculiarity of Cuba: the installationof the socialist model in a Caribbean reality characterized by relationism, alaidback way of life and being multiracial.It is an architectural laboratory, which saw the abstract application of thepopular rationalist model of city planning (from Eastern Europe or theSoviet Union) on the tropical coast, between palms and old fishing

communities. An Unit dhabitation by Le Corbousier, replicatedon a vast scale and now slowly crumbling due to a lack of maintenance,infrastructure, community services, communications and transport.

But Alamar is also a zone with a strong cultural identity, multicultural andcountercultural. It hosts a large community of Chileans that from 1973fled the persecution of General Pinochets military junta, together withother political refugees coming from Latin America and the UnitedStates. A social laboratory that houses: uncomfortable intellectuals that

preferred to leave the centre to make use of a higher existential liberty;doctors and military personnel that the government had moved to thecity; entire family units moved on mass from the centre so that the oldcity could undergo a radical restoration; as well as Russians that

transferred here as a result of the friendship between Cuba and theUSSR. This social puzzle facilitated the birth of a cultural laboratory inwhich, for more than twenty years, artists and activists have lived andworked; representatives of Cuban counterculture, groups that operate in

the shadows of the institutions and have turned the area into a dynamic


26


27/96

THE ZONE: ALAMAR

27

Alamar(above) and amoment ofOmnisparticipationto the Rapfestival ofAlamar in2001.

space of research into new possible forms of civil survival. It was not bychance that the area saw the foundation and development ofInternational Rap Festival, from which groups like the Orishas and theFree Holes Negros emerged, groups that have already been largelyabused by the international market.


28/96


28


29/96

THE ZONE: ALAMAR

29


30/96


31/96

Garabatoparalasaluddela

poesia,OmniperformativepilgrimagetotheSanctuaryo

f

SanLzaro,everyDecembe

r17thdurinothefestivalPo

esasinfin.


32/96


32

The protagonists: Omni Zonafranca

The Omni Zonafranca group is heir to a long avant-garde tradition thathas been firmly routed in Alamar since the seventies. Its exponents are thesons of the intellectual dissidents that have been present since thefoundation of the neighborhood. The group projects are the continuationsof experiences of creative collective working that were made in the sameneighborhood during the eighties (by the Quijote, the Grupo Alternativa, theGrupo Uno).Since 1997, Omni Zonafranca has worked without political, economic orinstitutional recognition or support and without resources, or with only the

few that they can get thanks to the help of their community, spreading theword in the streets to find the instruments and materials that they need. Notype of material shortage has stopped the group from putting into practiceits ethical actions in the streets. Omni has constructed communicativeround benches at bus stops, where people normally queue for hours, waiting

Pan con poeta, performance. Olver Reyes offers the grilled body of a poet (Luis EligioPrez), enveloped in his poetry. Who will eat will receive the gift of poetry.


33/96

THE PROTAGONISTS

33

for transportation to the centre of Havana, without communicating. Thegroup protested against degradation and the leaving of rubbish in the streetsby filling a square with it (and doing so were jailed), an action that is stilldiscussed now by the community many years on. They have restructuredentire abandoned areas in order to give them back to the people of theneighborhood. An example of such is the amphitheatre of Alamar, which

since 1995 has housed the International Rap Festival.Omni feeds off the stories and lives of the inhabitants of thisarea/laboratory. The noises and tensions of its streets become thematerials they play with, to bring humanity and social conscience back to

the city of Alamar.The artists of the group have barely been recognized as such. Most of themnever studied (by choice, given that education in Cuba is free to all) in ar tschools of higher education such as the ISA, Instituto Superior de Arte,

from which the artists of greatest success of the last generations haveemerged. They havent exhibited in official or major galleries nor do livefrom their art. At the same time they can count on an extendedinternational network of artists, activists, writers, filmmakers and theorists,with whom they have collaborated during the years during several projectsin Alamar.Therefore, they prefer to speak of themselves as constructors of networksas opposed to artists. The network in Alamar is not the Internet but the city,

the neighborhood, the bus, the market, the breadline, the market stall or the


34/96


34

irregular space between two buildings. For these activists of Free Thought, ina country in which an internet connection costs between six and ten dollarsan hour (almost equivalent to the base salary for a worker), interactivity is

the intensification of communication between individuals, changing language,helping people be able to think for themselves and showing a possible newway of living, based on humanity instead of individualism.Omni Zonafrancas artistic practice focuses on improving the human sideof social behavior in a society that became poor, sad and dehumanizedafter the Periodo Especial (a situation remarkably well described in Pedro

Juan Gutierrezs Trilogia sucia de La Habana). Improving human relationsmeans constructing el Hombre Nuevo [the new man], whose behavior is

not based on immediate material need (often false needs that have beenimported through tourism) nor satisfied by being an apatheticRevolucionario. Using street style, attitude and language, Omni shows

Santa Barbara and San Lzaro sold in the sanctuary of San Lzaro, in the periphery ofLa Havana.


35/96

that there is another possible way of existing. A way of existing based oncommon needs, common political and historical background and, above all,common humanity.

Omni does not produce well thought-out and modeled objects for aninternational art market, which for years has accepted other supposedlypolitical Cuban ar tists. They prefer to use ephemeral elements: the voice,

the body, gestures and behavior, all mediums that are economical, quick anddifficult to control or censor. It is not a coincidence that performance has along tradition in the contemporary art of Cuba or Latin America in general.Its dynamism, low-cost, flexibility and its ability to penetrate a wide socialcontext make it a useful medium; universally accessible, easily shared and able

to challenge the censors, easily molded for different needs. Omni Zonafrancawork collectively. They infiltrate society to bring, as explained by poet andperformer Eligio Prez, new air to the heads of each individual, the brothers

that we encounter on the bus, in the markets, whilst in the breadline. Poets

(which does not mean able constructors of verse but communicators,according to the father of the homeland Jos Mart, who was foremost apoet), painters, performers, sculptors, writers, photographers, filmmakers,singer-songwriters, actors and rappers; the artists of the group blur theboundaries between techniques and projects for communicating.David Escalona, the youngest core-member of the group, accompanies hisverses with an old typewriter. He takes it with him on his shoulders around

the city; the rhythm of the keys and the tambourine provide the beat forhis slam poetry.

THE PROTAGONISTS

35

Aschisch, still from

the video, 2006.


36/96

Yoyi (Jorge Prez), son of a documentary filmmaker and photographerfrom the Cuban Cinematographic Institue (Icaic), paints on the crusty wallsof public buildings to improve the look of the neighborhood. He has alsostarted to document the groups actions using the video function of an olddigital camera.

Amaury Pacheco, who every Monday stays silent from dusk till dawn andevery Wednesday walks backwards, is a poet and performer in every singlemoment of his life. Above all else he is a communicator, always ready tospeak to the community and listen to their problems.Minerva Romero is an actress and performer of Alamar close to the Omnigroup. As part ofHaciendo Taller, she organized an event during which theinhabitants of the neighborhood helped her to carry bricks whilst placed inan articulated line that formed the words Cantos a mi misma (in Cubancantos means both bricks as well as songs). The bricks were the

primary materials used in the restoration of her familys house. Theperformance, which consisted of a play on the words of a verse by WaltWhitman (Song of myself), used social and collective interaction tochange reality (the house belonging to the artists parents).

Comuniktis one of the longest running projects developed by Omni overthe years. It is a series of performances in public spaces paying homage tothe Television God, unmasking the apathy towards ideas imposed byofficial communication. An old television is installed in a public space, in the


36

Atajo video, stillfrom video 2006.


37/96

guise of an altar. A group of performers bring offerings (fruit, flowers,sweets). Just like they do in the syncretic tradition, which mixes the Afro-Cuban religious customs of the Orisha with the catholic traditionsimported by the Spanish colonizers, when paying homage to the statues ofsaints (Babal Aye/San Lzaro Chang/Santa Barbara; etc). As though part ofa ritual the performers bow down and kneel in front of the god/television,

touching the ground with their heads. ForVasos comunicantes, a series ofdocumentaries, creative videos and interviews, filmed quickly in the Alamarcommunity, also formed par t of the development ofComunikt. In theoccasion of the performance, which took place in the market of Alamar,

the ritualistic paying homage to the television god was transformed into a

collective screening of the films produced by the group. The rituals star ted,as usual, with the performers arriving in front of the totem of televisionscreens with offerings. Then at a certain point, amongst the screams andapplause of the spectators (the market was full of the neighborhoods

THE PROTAGONISTS

37

Comunikt, performance, Habana Vieja 2003.


38/96

inhabitants), the televisions started to show the videos by the Omni group.Videos that gave a voice to Alamar, to its surreal spaces, to its inhabitants,

to its problems, dreams and fears. The condemnation of the pervasiveomnipresence of official communication into the lives of the Cuban peoplebecame the self-narration and self-assertion of a marginalized community


38

Omnis grafitis inAlamar.


39/96

that for the first time could see itself represented, could watch itself andcould feel that it had a voice and space. Dont hate the media, theperformance appeared to say, make it yourself. Just like has happenedduring the last decade in the industrialized world, with the democratizationof digital media and use of the Internet.

THE PROTAGONISTS

39

David Escalona

Carrillo (above)and Jorge Prez(Yoyi).


40/96


40

A meeting with Omni Zonafranca

Omnis studio is a room in the cultural centre of Alamar, named after theCuban poet Fayad Jamis, given in concession by the neighborhoodsadministration. Here, next to the art gallery and bellow the school of Afro-Cuban dance, from which emanate daily sounds of shouts and percussion,

the group meets to take all its decisions. Their friends and theneighborhoods inhabitants pass through, to meet up, to take part in

initiatives and projects, or to paint or make use of the kiln. All the collectivesmeetings with the outside world take place here, with visitors and peopleinterested in the group, both Cuban and foreign. The meetings are alwayssimilar: you enter into the room where all the group members are sat in acircle, waiting; you then sit in the only remaining empty seat; a few momentsof silence are then observed (moments of meditation for those whomanage) and then talking begins. The first experience is embarrassing.Having known Omni for various years, I understood that this practiceserves to wipe the slate clean of the outside world, to feel connected and

to start a dialogue based on a sense of belonging to a community.How are Omnis activities carried out?Luis Eligio Prez Cafria: We are poets, sculptors, painters, musicians andphotographers. Each one of us is willing try their hand at any availableexpressive medium. I am a poet, which for me does not mean writingverses, but expressing myself. Poetry is all that can bring together art andlife. My own life is poetry: when I eat, when I get dressed, when I think.We work, above all, writing and carrying out projects that are presented inpublic spaces. We have painted murals in various parts of Alamar, we have

Comunikt, IX Havana Biennal,main market of Alamar.


41/96

A MEETING WITH OMNI ZONAFRANCA

41

made permanent installations in public spaces, public poetry readings andperformances. We cleaned and redecorated the amphitheatre that hosts

the Rap festival every August, in which we and many other young poetshave the possibility to read what they write and to do their ownperformances. Working for and with our community has made us intosome sort of social workers: every action and every project tends to favora new reading of society, to change peoples minds. It is like bringing newair to this absurd city, made of infinitely repetitive buildings.Jorge Prez Gonzales (Yoyi): We are continuing an artistic community projectthat has allowed us to also be social workers that offer the community newapproaches to reality. We carry out projects that, once introduced into the

social context, change it. By consequence, peoples ways of thinking and beingchange. Realizing a liberation that brings fresh air to this peripheral city.Before doing a specific project in our neighborhood, we carry out asociological study, we know the points of reference, the heads. Thereforewe start working, analyzing how people live, who these people are, how

they speak and feel.We do it in a way that the people want to be involved in our work; wedont wish to intervene, from above, but we want to learn from them.It has been difficult to get the institutions to notice the work that we do.

Work that is completely independent: we make working connectionsbetween us artists and the institutions.Ren y Ren play percussion whilst singing verses. Ren is the author ofLaChula, a song that the kids of the neighborhood know as the Rap ofAlamar. It speaks of a mysterious girl who wanders the streets of theneighborhood driving all who see her crazy.

Fantasmas Civicos,performance, La Havana 2003.


42/96


42


43/96


43


44/96

Terra, performance, 2003.


45/96


46/96

Ren y Ren: I write verses, I am a sculptor, but my real passion is rapping.For years I have been active in Alamars Rap festival. This Rap is not thecommercialized music of the US or Europe, for us it is a way of directexpression, felt, which can be shared. Rap is the word and the action.The government does not like that we do these things: this makes me feelexcluded, underground, without a vocation.

Jorge Prez Gonzales (Yoyi): I think that my work is staying here, in Cuba;to know Cuba and to remain here. The problem for Cubans is that theycant leaveWork in the neighborhood has given me the possibility to have direct

contact with the people, with their lives and the things they need. As anartist I have learnt more from regular people, who have broadened myway of working and seeing, that from anyone else.I dont want to be the artist that works enclosed in their studio, trying toproduce for galleries. I want to be the artist that produces for hiscommunity.

What is performance?Luis Eligio Prez Cafria: Performance is one of the most direct modes of

using your body.Jorge Prez Gonzales (Yoyi): We began to work in the streets doingperformances because performances allow you to be dynamic. We dont


46

Omni in his studiogetting ready,throughmeditation for aperformance.


47/96

want to do works that are carried out in a painting, but works that allowus to become fully immersed within a community.Amaury Pacheco: We dont have the money to realize a project, we donthave the economic power that some others may have; we rely only on thework of our bodies and the possibility we have of being helped by all

those who wish to participate.

To describe Omni, Amaury Pacheco takes me to visit Alamar, its areas, thepublic spaces and the installations thought up and realized by the group inthe neighborhood. As we cross a sunny street, which passes alongsidepatches of tropical vegetation interspersed with white five-storey communityhousing buildings, an old woman shouts Amaury! from within a camello (thesqueaky buses of the city outskirts) waving her arms in our direction.The neighborhood knows youAmaury Pacheco: After years of work finally yes, and the local people haveunderstood us, they participate, they help us in our initiatives; we have

been working with them since 1997.Tell me about the story of OmniAmaury Pacheco: Omni was born from the fusion of two collectives thatwould meet up in the cultural centre: Gruppo Uno andZona Franca. Thefirst were mostly interested in poetry and verbal expression: Gruppo Unogave life to the annual rap festival, which brought together artists frommany countries of the world.Zona Franca was more orientated towards

the visual arts, and was born as a collective for the sharing of experiencesand actions with the neighborhood.


47

A bus stop inAlamar paintedand renovated byOmni.


48/96

From the union of these two attitudes was born Omni, all in Latin. We useany possible means of expression to communicate.

Amaury continues the journey in an underpass with walls full of writing,graffiti, drawings and ideograms.Amaury Pacheco: This place we are in is the bridge that we call theImboscata. We devised a trick to get ourselves know by everyone in ourneighborhood, so that everyone could know what we did every day. Every

minute buses pass under here transporting the inhabitants of the entireeastern periphery to the centre. These modes of public transport carrymore than five hundred people. We realized that if the people who passedunder here every day with a camello found our mark, all of Alamar wouldhave immediately known and remembered us.We did it all in one night. It always takes time to do these works becausewe work with paint and brushes, not with spray cans, which are rarelyfound in Cuba and which we couldnt afford anyway.They call our way of working recycling: more than an attitude this is a


48

Pagadores de promesa, AmauryPacheco during the pilgrimageto San Lzaro sanctuary,December 17th 2003.


49/96

necessity, because we work exclusively with materials that we ask toborrow from people who no longer need them. In this way we found thebrushes and the colors.It was a good work. After an entire night passed painting, the morning afterat dawn, we were able to see the result.The police, with whom we dont get on, did not even intervene. Thepeople of the neighborhood, who passing by saw us working, decided to

tell us when the patrols passed and defended us when someonethreatened to tell the authorities.

How are your relations with the institutions?

Amaury Pacheco: It has almost always been conflictual: we use anavant-garde language and we try to speak to as many people aspossible. We star ted doing performances in the streets of ourneighborhood and then afterwards in Old Havana as well, where many

tourists also pass. We have organized incursions on buses, public spaces,markets and in the most frequented streets. Once we decided toinvolve the people waiting for the camello. Problems with transport areone of the things that most worry the inhabitants of Havana: we areused to waiting for them for up to an hour, on foot in a queue, one next

to another.It has always shocked me to see all these people in line next to eachother, who dont look at or speak to each other. So one day we turned

the stops into social spaces. We constructed round benches; these forced


49

Left: Amaury Pacheco with Albero Virella, ex former director of the cultural bureau ofSpanish Embassy in Havana and supporter of Omnis activity.


50/96

the people waiting patiently to look each other in the face, to sit in acircle and talk.

How do you connect these practices with the term performance, whichhas a well-codified meaning in the world of art?Amaury Pacheco: The language ofperformance has given us dynamism;none of us wanted our creativity to be trapped in a nice painting or aplastic form. By using our bodies we have been able to introduce ourselvesinto the middle of society without mediation.In recent times it seems that the institutions are becoming interested inpractices similar to our own; the Culture Minister has instituted a

Department of Community Activities that facilitates our actions of re-launching and developing peripheral areas. Suddenly it appears that ourartistic practices are less blocked. For this I feel that the moment hasarrived to make use of this opening from the institutions, to give space to

the countrys civil society.


50


51/96

Western newspapers talk about Cuba to condemn Castros authoritarianism; tounderline the touristic beauty of the island; to hail ideologically and uncritically theRevolution and Che; to criticize the proliferation of the jineteras or to remember

the beauty and rhythm of the Son and the Salsa.


51

Terra, performance, June 2003. 21 people look for a natural center in the middle ofthe city, according to Omni. The partecipants lay in circle around a centre mixedwith the ground during some hours, with the blessing of the rain, the cold wind andsinging a mantra.


52/96

Visiting the Biennial one discovers participation in cultural events and theproliferation of groups and activities that involve the cities public spaces. Do you

think that this fermentation is down to the Biennial, or something greater?The Biennial without doubt has the merit of energizing something that wasalready fermenting. We have worked together as a group since 1997,

therefore prior to the Havana Biennial deciding to give space to theperiphery. The ar tistic and cultural fermentation, and this push towardsrenewal, is a need that was already forcibly making room for itself in a

natural and spontaneous manner, in every corner of the island. The Biennialdid nothing else apart from highlight an already existent reality, which bit bybit was coming out of the shadows.Mart spoke of a superior state of human existence, which would havefollowed the revolution. I think that in this moment humanity is searchingfor this superior state, and our generation, in Cuba, is the one that willfacilitate the passage towards a better standard of life. The people born inCuba already posses the mentality, they are used to the idea of beingunited and working for the good of the community. I think its a kind of


52

Modos de izarse, performance of Amaury Pacheco during the 8th Havana Biennal,November 2003.


53/96

habit. For forty years already we have grown up hearing, You are like this;you are united, if you are concerned with the good of the community. I

think this is the right moment to demonstrate the validity of thishypothesis.The Cuban poet Jos Lezama Lima said that our people are missing only amidnight with the gods. Not in the religious sense of the term, more in

the sense that we have not yet completed a mental process that wouldallow us to look higher. This search for a higher level to aim for should, inmy opinion, be linked to the thought of Jos Mart, who said that therevolution must be With all and for the good of all (Con todos y para elbien de todos). We have not yet reached this level, and I think that my

generation can help to start this process.Cuba now has a minister of culture that helps our research: Abel Prieto.He is an ex-hippy that grew up in the first post revolutionary period, in thesixties. In that period Castro and his political class gave a lot of space to

the young people who had taken part in the revolution, the same


53

Omni Zonafranca ready to move for the pilgrimage to San Lzaro.


54/96

youngsters that were part of the hippy community. After 1975 there wasan authoritarian and bureaucratic involution that excluded these peopleform public life. This involution, in my opinion, was fundamental in the loss

of an important social adhesive. Civilized society lost its role as foundingorganism for common good. I think the right moment has arrived for them

to retake their role, which in substance is that of organizing public life,replacing the rigid and bureaucratic governing structure.Culture could be the key factor in this possible change of direction and thisis the right historical moment. We are ready; there are political groups infavor of this idea. The Cubans can do it, because they have the ideas and

the possibilities to express them; they are people who have studied.


54

Cantos a mi misma,public action ofMinerva Romeroduring Haciendo Taller,Vasos Comunicantes,Omni participation tothe IX HavanaBiennal. Neighboorsand friends in adistrict of Alamartransport bricks tothe apartment of theartists family.


55/96

Glossary

Alamar Express is the title of the CD of street poetry created, self-produced anddistributed by the Omni Zonafranca group in September 2005. 36 tracks ofvocals, street noises and slam poetry, accompanied by typewriters and guitars,which speak of the lives and tensions of a generation, the Generacin Omni.

Alamar express is the story of a journey through the neighborhood. The words andthe music (written and composed by the group) are purposely mixed with soundsof the city of Alamar. Everything was played, produced and post-produced byOmni. The group also realized a series of video-clips (which were also entirely self-produced), which began from the tracks of the CD and featured images taken in

the spaces of Alamar.

International biennial of contemporary art of Havana: Founded in 1984 in theCentro Wilfredo Lam of Havana, it initially dealt exclusively with artists from LatinAmerica, Asia and Africa. With time, and the gradual recognition from internationalcriticism, the Biennial has also opened up to North America and Europe. In 2006it reached the ninth edition, with the title Dinamicas de la cultura urbana [Dynamicsof urban culture]. It was born as a biennial that was meant to represent artistsfrom Third World countries, which, until 1984, had been little or not at allinvolved in the circuit of periodical international exhibitions, such as the VeniceBiennale.The Havana Biennale is based upon the work of a curatorial collective that takes

joint decisions, discussing and voting on proposals and options. Since the beginningthe collective has worked by distributing responsibilities and specializations on thebasis of geographic location; each person, in charge of a specific area, leads fieldresearch expeditions, to investigate the contemporary art of Africa, Latin Americaand Asia, to bring it to Havana.

Tania Bruguera was born in Havana in 1968. She lives and works between Havana,

Chicago and Paris. Principally known for her performances and actions (which sheprefers to speak of as Art of behaviour as opposed to performance), as well asfor her conceptual and environmental installations and projects. In more than tenyears of intense activity she has confronted tradition, the vocabulary of the worldof communication, painting and sculpture, old and new technologies, and her ownbody, as mediums for social investigation and political action. In her works anymedium is an instrument for exploring, testing, investigating and unmasking themechanisms of power, censorship, violence, authority and control, both local andglobal. At the ISA - Instituto Superior de Arte in La Havana - together with herprofessor of art Juan Francisco Elso Padilla, Bruguera moved towards an analysis of

55


56/96

the expressive possibilities of the human body through performance. One of herfirst works was the Progetto Ana Mendieta, in which the artist recorded andreinterpreted the work of the Cuban/American artist/performer.

This work was followed by various performance-based projects, mostly presentedin Havana during the Nineties, and exhibition projects linked to concepts ofenvironmental installation or site specific happenings, which have been presented

throughout the world (in par ticular at Documenta, at the Venice Biennale,Johannesburg, Sao Paolo, Istanbul, Havana, Tirana and Gwangju).

Camello [Camel]: are the squeaky buses from the outskirts of Havana,constructed using the carriages of old articulated lories and named after their

two-humped profiles.

Camello orTrenbus are the cities most economic buses: they cost just 20 peso-cents, equal to 0.7 Euro-cents. These modes of public transport are modifiedarticulated lorries, formed of a pulling cabin and a remodeled container to carrypassengers.

Censorship in the Cuban cultural system has developed and changed inaccordance with the evolution of the country and the consequent changes in theneeds of authority. After a period in which the tendency was to clamorously shutdown or obstruct voices that were contradictory, critical or dangerously adverse

to the political system in power, things appear to have changed since the Nineties.

Tania Bruguera spoke of this in an interview of 2003, during the eighth biennial ofHavana. Whereas now there is a re-reading of the ar tworks, previously thecensors screamed scandal and they stopped you from doing things, or they wouldclose the exhibitions. Todays censorship is more sophisticated; it guaranteesliberty of action and at the same time re-reads the artists works, controlling thepolitical and semantic meaning of the piece. According to Bruguera It is a far moreintelligent tactic and for us artists an even greater challenge.

Comunikt: A long-term performance project by Omni, realized for the first timeduring the Festival Visuarte Internacional di Cienfuegos in 2001.An altar to the TV God, write Omni, to the god that guides our minds. An altarof televisions, erected in a public space, is used as a sanctuary for performers; theybring offerings and bow down as they would to a statue of a saint. Omni targetsCuban television, with its two channels organized to function for the Revolutionand subject to the wishes of the government. In our actions in public spaces, themajor obstacles are mediatized minds, incapable of confronting reality thinking for

themselves, explain Omni in the text that presents the performance. The groupscriticism is aimed at the Cuban media and the intellectual enslaving of its citizens;in Cuba politics is discussed they explained during a conversation recorded in


56


57/96

2005, but the politics that is talked about in the media. It is difficult to findsomeone who has his own personal political view.The performance, which has been repeated in various urban spaces over the years,

starts with the adoration of the TV God. Then a video (screened on the altar oftelevisions) shows the social context in which the performance takes place. In theversion organized in the market of Zona 6 of Alamar, during the 2006 Biennial, thecollective interviewed the inhabitants of the neighborhood. They asked them toillustrate an idea for improving life in the community and for a spiritual message for

the city. The resulting creative documentary was shown on the altar of televisions. Inthis way opinions that differed from those expressed by the national TV becamesocialized and legitimized - being inserted into the same TV from which FidelCastro talks daily during the political/cultural show Mesa Redonda.

Enjoy!: Festival of performance of Havana, curated by Juan Rivero, a graduate ofthe Instituto Superior de Arte. Rivero was part of the D.U.P.P. collective (see theRen Francisco entry below), a group whose main focus was on the use of artas pragmatic means of action in social and human spaces. After the conclusion of

the D.U.P.P. experience, Rivero has dedicated himself to the organization of a seriesof festivals of performance, taking place in eccentric spaces compared to thosenormally used to display art. Its first edition, with the title Proyecto Circo, was acollateral event of the eighth Havana Biennial, in November 2003: Juan organized

the erection of a circus tent in Alamar, a few meters from the cultural centre. For

three days the public of the biennial mixed with the population of theneighborhood, who had gone to see the circus with family members and children.The invited artists proposed a mix of street theatre and performances for thiseclectic public. Omni Zonafranca took part in the circus with the performanceFantasmas civicos: the collective entered into the tent after a march through thestreets of Almar that involved the inhabitants of the neighborhood. In 2005, Riveroorganized the second edition of the festival, this time hosted in an ex boxing-ringin the city centre. As with the previous edition, this was also a strongly popularsetting: boxing is a sport firmly rooted in Cuban popular culture. The thirdperformance festival was Enjoy!, realized by Rivero in March 2006 as a collateralevent of the ninth Biennial of Havana. In this occasion it was housed in La Tropical,a music club in the residential neighborhood of Playa. Here Omni participatedwith a performance in which David Escalona Carrillo, Amaury Pacheco del Monte,Ren Cervantes Debrn, Luis Eligio Prez M. Cafria recited slam poetry to therhythm of typewriters.

Ren Francisco: Born in Holgun in 1960, he lives and works between Havana,Berlin and Madrid. He studied at the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA) and at theISA (Instituto Superior de Arte), both in Havana. Afterwards he traveled between

GLOSSARY

57


58/96

Germany, Switzerland, Israel, US and Spain, whilst still rooting his practice inHavana. His work uses various mediums and procedures (installation, sculpture,video, performance, photography), and is focused on the deconstruction of the

barriers that exist between daily life and the world of art, investigating the varioushuman and social contexts in which artistic production is formed and moves.Franciscos research, which has often been related to the work of MarcelBroodhaers, Hans Haacke and Joseph Beuys, has been characterized, since theearly Eighties, by its collective and collaborative tension. Up until 1990 Franciscoworked with the Cuban conceptual artist Eduardo Ponjun, with whom he madea series of projects. After this, at the same time as his teaching at the ISA, Franciscofounded the group Galera D.U.P.P. (Desde una Pedagoga Pregmtica), a collectiveproject of teaching and creativity. In its eleven years of activity (1989-2000) D.U.P.P.

represented an important moment of research for Cuban art, not only for itspraxis of collaborative research, experimentation and production (realized throughFranciscos pedagogical praxis of relationism with his ISA students), but also for theinteraction with urban and social spaces through the use of performances,installations and actions. D.U.P.P. was awarded with the UNESCO Prize in 2000 for

the installation realized for the VII Havana Biennial (2000). After a period ofintrospective research that followed the end of the D.U.P.P. experience and theproduction of the sculptures/objects of the Tubosutra series (a mix of the termsTubo and Kamasutra, as Francisco himself explained), Francisco is now working on

the projects of social insertion El patio de Nin and La casa de Rosa. These works

were presented at the last two Havana Biennials (2003 and 2006) and wererealized in the last three years with to the support of funding won in Berlin.

Graffiti: For the group Omni, painting the streets of the neighborhood with colorand brushes (because, as Amaury Pacheco underlined spray cans cost toomuch) is one of the practices of action in reality. Omni uses graffiti, appropriatingboth a practice and definition born in western metropolises, as a statement of thefringe culture and global underground of which the group feels it wants to bepart, to distance itself from official Cuban culture. We are interested in theperipheral idea of graffiti they wrote in a manifesto, which consists in the liber ty tomark public spaces with the same liberty enjoyed by the government and which isused by the common people of marginal neighborhoods. Graffiti is therefore anappropriation of the practice of official culture and also an act of self-assertion(just like the graffiti artist of New York who would write their tags on theunderground carriages to make themselves visible to the whole city). But above allOmni makes use of a practice that associates the group with local counterculture(the people of marginal neighborhoods) by sticking to the same practice used inother global metropolises. Appropriating a language that is universally recognizedand leaves its signature on buildings, bridges and bus stops of the city.


58


59/96

Hip Hop: Like everything that comes from abroad, even Rap and North Americanmusic culture have been adopted, metabolized and mixed with local tensions, and

tied to the history of the country. Whilst in the West we are used to seeing

millionaire rappers on MTV, who dish out by now innocuous verses, wearing,without critical spirit, expensive clothes made by multinational brands and shoutingsexist rhymes, in Havana the perspective appears to be reversed. Making Hip Hopis still a moment of rebellion, of marginality, an action of liberation (as it was inEurope and the States during the Eighties). The first festival of Cuban Hip Hop wasborn in Alamar in 1995 (with the name Festival del Rap Cubano) and was amoment of collective rebellion by the fringe groups and underground of the Cubancapital. Omni Zonafranca cleaned and decorated the open-air amphitheatre ofAlamar, which had been in a state of abandonment, to use it as the epicenter. On

the stage they recited slam and poetry along with the local rappers.The festival was star ted by the Grupo Uno collective of Alamar, which since theNineties has worked as a cultural organizer in contact with Omni Zonafranca.Rodolfo Rensoli, Balesy Rivero and Carlos Zulueta were the creators of the festival,and were also the people that pushed for the governmental support of the event(since 1996, the Asociacin Hermanos Saz, the cultural extension of the CommunistYouth Organization that promotes young artists, has been the official supporter of

the festival). Since its foundation the festival has taken place each year in Alamar, ithas allowed for the bringing together of a generation that had been consideredmarginal since the Eighties (the festival, in this sense, could be considered the public

arena for Cuban rap, which since the beginning has been developed mixing Spanishwith local slang). In 2002 the government officially opened the Agencia cubana deRap, with the official hip hop magazine Movimiento, in an attempt to support (andcontrol) the growth of Rap in the island.The recording of a performance realized by Omni during the rap festival in 2001shows the collective improvising a slam poem in front of a huge Cuban. When theperformer pronounced the phrase the revolution will be a party the policearrived and closed the manifestation.

ISA: The Instituto Superior de Arte is a postgraduate school that young artists canattend after having finished their studies at the Art Academy; selections are madeon the basis of application. It was founded immediately after Revolution, with thename Escuelas Nacionales de Arte (Ena), when the government expropriated the

terrain from an American golf club (the Country Club). It was the most importantarchitectural project (completely neo avant-garde) to which the new revolutionarygovernment dedicated itself between 1959 and 1962. The school is open to artistsof all disciplines: music, fine arts, dance and theatre. For the realization of thebuilding, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (it was their idea to create a school ofexcellence for all the students of the Third World on the inside of one of the

GLOSSARY

59


60/96

symbols of American wealth on the island, the golf club) commissioned, for therealization of the project, three young architects who had come to Cuba to help

the revolution: Ricardo Porro, Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti.

Jos Mart: Cuban national hero. Writer, poet and traveler. Mart studied in Europeand the United States and died in 1895 fighting for Cuban independence. He was

the first Cuban modernist poet and the author of the lyrics of the popular songGuantanamera. Con todos y para el bien de todos [with all and for the good ofall] (to which Amaury Pacheco makes reference in the interview) is a verse byMart, quoted in the first article of the Cuban constitution of 1901.

Jinetras/os: The names of the young guys and girls that accompany wealthy

tourists in search of exotic adventures, in exchange for hospitality, a few presentsand sometimes money.

Microbrigadas: groups of specialized workers that were employed in governmentconstruction projects. Numerous suburban neighborhoods of Havana, plannedduring the Seventies, were built by the microbrigadas.

Performance: Omni appropriated the term participating in festivals and nationalmeetings that gathered together artists working with this specific practice. Thegroup does not however share its definition as technique: a practice formatted

according to aesthetic codes and imagined for predefined spaces. In this senseOmni prefers to refer to performances using street language: pasaje for example,or prisma, which implies a greater impact on the people who find themselvesassisting. Omni called the first projects in public spaces non programmed actionswithout plot. It is about the creation of situations in unsuspecting moments andspaces: wandering the streets with painted faces; bringing or wearing found objectsand speaking with passers-by; walking backwards; speaking loudly on streetcorners, perhaps with a tambourine or reciting verses; making group pilgrimages

to locations relevant to the community. An example of these actions could be thepilgrimage to the sanctuary of San Lzaro (see entry), or the reading of poetry inpublic transport (carried out with the aim of involving surrounding people).The programmed performances by the Omni group foresee the control of everysmall detail of what will happen: script, clothes, acting, mode of public interaction(aware and unaware) and even interactions with the police. An example of this isComunikt (see entry) orHigiene Pblica, realized in the open-air amphitheatre ofAlamar, during the ninth Hip Hop festival (summer 2003): this performancecombined elements of Hip Hop culture (music, dance, rap) with the programmingof a collective action. By Omnis definition, performance is an attitude that favors

the constant manifestation of the Creative State. At the same time it is the


60


61/96

artistic expression which best characterizes us and through which we cancombine all our creative possibilities. The performance is the element throughwhich all the different personalities of the group flow, operating socially, through

the body, the oral, poetry, the visual aspect of writing, dance-theatre, music, singing,plastic creation, all that we project into urban spaces, into theatres and galleries.

Periodo Especial:the decade that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. The Periodoespecial signaled a grave economic crisis for the country, which until the earlyNineties counted on the USSR for substantial economic support. Cuba lost almostall its exports and imports. The population lived in constant absence of primarynecessity goods and food shortages.The crisis is remembered as a devastatingperiod for the island, which in recent years is managing to stabilize its economy

thanks to the development of tourism.Poesa sin fin: since 1999, every 30th December, Omni unveils a new sculpture in

the garden of the House of culture Fayad Jamis in Alamar. These sculptures areinstalled together with the public and the community of the neighborhood.According to Omni, they directly influence the aesthetic environment of Alamar, acity of monotonous and deficient architecture, which influences the populationand its human relationships. The event, entitled Poesa sin fn [poetry without end],has been transformed over the years into a festival that lasts the entire month ofDecember. The event also involves the group pilgrimage to the sanctuary of San

Lzaro for the health of poetry (see entry). Poesia sin fin is an event designed tobring together the diverse spirits and origins of the group. Poetry readings,exhibitions of aesthetic objects, actions in public spaces and performances makeup the program of events. It always aims to involve participants from other groupsor backgrounds, or artists that work or have worked in Alamar and are part of theareas tradition of counterculture. The festival focuses on poetry and performance,involving all the artistic tendencies (omni in latin means all) in a sort of total-artwork. For Omni, poetry is not the construction of verses, but the infinite (sinfin) possibilities of working and expression. It is the natural reunion of all thepossible expressions, ways of being, wishes to communicate; it is the sentiment

that unifies and brings together minds; the metaphorical language that shows,without objectively describing: poetry is at the base of the groups origins.Poetry is a creative attitude onto which writing is projected and proportioned:poetic texts, narratives, sound, theatre, essays, songs, rap. These elements aredefined as installations because they are thought of as actions to install poetry.The foundation of Omni Zonafranca merged the two souls of its background intoreal world action. Zonafranca, the second part of the group name, was in factessentially a group of poets that operated in Alamar. Omni was conceived more asa group of fine ar tists. The basis of the fusion between Omni and Zonafranca was

GLOSSARY

61


62/96

that of molding the word (used by Zonafranca) onto the aesthetic aspect ofcreativity, in the wish to act on reality.

Abel Prieto: an ex hippy and writer, and the current culture minister of Cuba.Prieto has long hair in a ponytail: this goes against the aesthetic rules of theRevolution that wants all its followers to adhere impeccably to the norm, whichcalls for short hair, military style, etc. Prieto is well liked by the Cuban peoplebecause, in 2000, he granted permission for a statue of John Lennon to be placedin a public park in the city centre. This statement signified a public acceptance of

the Beatles, who up until that point had been viewed by the Cuban as the imageof western cultural imperialism, Anglophonic and counterrevolutionary. Straightafterward taxis, restaurants and other public places started to play Rock as a

musical backdrop mixed with salsa and son. Prieto, one of the few young ministersof Castros government, whilst being firmly installed in the political reality, is seenby Omni as a person willing to help the activities young Cuban artists in view of afuture political change.

San Lzaro [St Lazarus]: Each 17th December thousands of Cubans head to thesanctuary of San Lzaro, in the small church of Santiago de Las Vegas, in Havana. It is asyncretic religious tradition that mixes both Catholicism and the afro-Cuban religionof the Orishas: San Lzaro, protector of beggars and lepers, forms part of the afro-Cuban tradition as Babalu Ay. Cubans go to his sanctuary to pray for health and to

carry out a promise, which tradition requires is respected, as it is a pact with a divinity.For this reason, every 17th December, thousands of penitents go to the sanctuarywalking barefoot, backwards, on their knees, rolling, etc. This pilgrimage takes placewith a festive spirit typical of the Santeria, which foresees the ritual accompaniment ofrum and conga. The Cuban term en la lucha [in the fight] signifies the daily fightagainst difficulties, going forward. Jesus said to the dying Lazarus arise and walk; thisis a powerful metaphor for the wish of the Cuban people to rise and go forward,every day, against the miseries and difficulties of daily life.Omni Zonafrancas march towards the Rincon is a performance that takes placeon the street, in order to pay homage to a saint much loved by the Cuban people.Omni-Zonafranca have gone to the Rincon every year since 2001 for thisperformance entitled Garabato para la salud de la poesia [Garabato for the healthof poetry]. The group travels from Alamar, crosses the city, and walks the last par tof the road joining Santiago de Las Vegas to the sanctuary together with

thousands of faithful from across the Island. Omni bring a heavy burden on theirshoulders (a bundle of branches tied together), for a pilgrimage that is poetic andperformative, dynamic and illuminating for the health of the people and poetry, asa manifestation of the good universal creator.


62


63/96

APPARATA

63

Omni Zonafranca

El grupo OMNI-ZONAFRANCA surgi en el 1997 y hasta la fecha tiene mas de200 acciones realizadas incluido premios en diferentes eventos de artes visuales yperformances.Somos un grupo de accin y proyeccin socio-comunitaria. El Arte es laherramienta mediante la cual nos comunicamos y nos proyectamos. La realidadsocial, existencial, y las posibilidades creadoras del ser humano son la materiaprima contenida en nuestras obras.Es en la comunidad donde directamente proyectamos nuestro obrar, pues labsqueda y el despertar del estado perpetuo de la creacin existente dentro decada ser humano es el propsito que nos alienta.

EL RESULTADO MAS OBSTENSIBLE DE NUESTRO TRABAJO, generalmente, esla obra de carcter ar tstico: pintura, fotografa, escultura, instalaciones,performance, todo ello con un carcter ambiental e interdisciplinario.

EL PERFORMANCE ES, para nosotros, una actitud que propicia la manifestacinconstante del Estado creativo, pero tambin es la manifestacin artstica quemejor nos caracteriza, y a travs de la cual podemos conjugar todas nuestrasposibilidades creativas. A travs de l asumimos elementos del cuerpo, de laoralidad, la poesa, la escritura en su aspecto visual, la danza-teatro, la msica, elcanto, y toda la creacin plstica, los que enfticamente proyectamos en espaciosurbanos, aunque tambin en de teatros y galeras.

Entre los principales eventos en los que ha participado el grupo, podemosnombrar- 1er FESTIVAL NACIONAL DE RAP CUBANO y FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DEHIPHOP Alamar, Habana del Este 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, Alamar,Habana del Este.- JORNADA NACIONAL DE POESIA, Ciudad de Santi Espritus, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002.- II ENCUENTRO DE PERFORMANCES, VISUARTE INTERNACONAL, Ciudad deCienfuegos, 2001.- I y II SALON DE INSTALACIONES FRANCISCO ELSO PADILLA, Galera MarianoRodrguez, Villa Panamericana Alamar, Habana del Este, 2001 y 2002.- BABEL: ENCUENTRO DE PLASTICOS, ROMERIA DE MAYO, Ciudad Holgun, 2001,2003.- FESTIVAL DEL CARIBE, Santiago de Cuba, 2001, 2004.- BRIGADA INTERNACIONAL COMUNITARIA, organizada por Karel Leyva y el grupoOMNI, Habana del Este, 2002.- ENCUENTRO DE INTERVENCION Y PERFORMANCE PUENTE SUR, PLAYA DEMAYABEQUE, Melena del Sur, Provincia Habana, 2002, 2003, 2004.

- 8va BIENAL DE LA HABANA. Intervencin performatica en la inauguracin oficial, Plaza


64/96


64

Vieja, Habana Vieja; Galera abierta en la Bienal; y Viernes del Performance en la Bienal.2003.- II JORNADA NACIONAL DE TEATRO CALLEJERO, ciudad de Matanzas, 2004.

El Grupo OMNI, como parte de su trabajo comunitario, ha organizado los siguienteseventos:- POESIA SIN FIN (enfocada en la poesa y el performance, alrededor de los cualesconfluyen todas las tendencias del arte; han participado creadores y grupos de diferentesregiones del pas y del mundo), Galera Fayad Jams, Alamar, Habana del Este, 1999, 2000,2001, 2002, 2003, 2004.- VIERNES DEL PERFORMANCE (evento trimestral, se realiza en los espacios pblicos deAlamar con un artista invitado para cada ocasin y que culmina en la galera Fayad Jams,2003 a la fecha.- PERFORMANCE DEL GARABATO POR LA SALUD DE LA POESIA (peregrinacinpotica-performtica, cada ano el 17 de diciembre, al Rincn, Iglesia de San Lzaro),Santiago de Las Vegas, Provincia Habana 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004.- Novena BIENAL DE LA HABANA. Presentacion de la actividad de Omnia dentro de lacomunidad de Alamar, HACIENDO TALLER: VASOS COMUNICANTES, marzo abril 2006.

El Grupo OMNI cuenta con un espacio Taller perteneciente a la Galera Fayad Jamis deAlamar, el cual propicia diferentes talleres de creacin y de autosanacin, todo proyectoque nos propone cualquier creador de la comunidad. En este sentido funciona lo quehemos denominado LABORATORIUM COSMICO, que abre todo tipo de posibilidad a laCreacin, incluso mas all de la proyeccin artstica, lo que permite una unin armnica dearte y vida as como la realizacin individual desde una dinmica de grupo que alcanza a la

comunidad.INTEGRANTES DE OMNI-ZONAFRANCA:Amaury Pacheco Del MonteDavid Escalona CarrilloOlver Reyes RodrguezRaymundo Fernndez MoyaRen Cervantes DebrnAdolfo Cabrera Prez( Fito)

Jorge Prez( Yoyi)Nilo Julin Gonzlez Preval

Damin Valdez DillaJorge Carlos AcevedoLuis Eligio Prez Merino Cafria.

Telfonos: 65 3253 (Galera Fayad Jams, Alamar)862 0797 (Lus Eligio)65 1612 (David Escalona C.)93 1994 (Amaury Pacheco)e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]


65/96

APPARATA

65

Alamar

ALAMAR ES NUESTRA COMUNIDAD inmediata; ciudad dormitorio, sin iglesia,sin cementerio, sin industria, con estructuras deficientes, y escasos espacios para elarte; sin embargo posee tradicin cultural de carcter alternativo, en lo referido alarte: grupos de accin social, arte calle y ecolgico (Grupos La Cuadra, El Quijote,Arte-Nativa), Festivales de Rock, de Rap y Hip Hop. En Alamar existe adems una

tradicin de pensamiento social que se remonta a la presencia de exiliadospolticos latinoamericanos amigos de Cuba, de tcnicos extranjeros provenientesdel antiguo campo socialista, de sectores profesionales que se aglutinan en reasespecificas de la comunidad, con una poblacin de 100 000 habitantesconformada tambin por emigrantes de otras ciudades del pas, una especie de

puerta de acceso a la capital. Un barrio de periferia construido con el conceptode barrio obrero o de trabajadores, fundado en el ano 1974 por el programasocial de las Microbrigadas, que se ha ido paulatinamente ampliando, como centropoltico de la Habana del Este y cuyos habitantes le consideran ciudad otra a laCiudad de La Habana.

En este contexto cultural vivimos, aqu nos conectamos, y proponemos el espaciociudad cultivada a toda persona o institucin interesados en la practica autenticade la creacin.Somos un grupo de accin y proyeccin socio-comunitaria. El Arte es laherramienta mediante la cual nos comunicamos y nos proyectamos. La realidadsocial, existencial, y las posibilidades creadoras del ser humano son la materiaprima contenida en nuestras obras.

Es en la comunidad donde directamente proyectamos nuestro obrar, pues labsqueda y el despertar del estado perpetuo de la creacin existente dentro decada ser humano es el propsito que nos alienta. (Omni por ellos mismos.Amaury Pacheco Del Monte; David Escalona Carrillo; Olver Reyes Rodrguez;Raymundo Fernndez Moya; Ren Cervantes Debrn; Adolfo Cabrera Prez

(Fito); Jorge Prez ( Yoyi); Nilo Julin Gonzlez Preval; Damin Valdez Dilla; JorgeCarlos Acevedo; Lus Eligio Prez Merino Cafria).


66/96


66

Haciendo taller: vasos comunicantes

Proyecto para la 9na Bienal de La HabanaEl proyecto consiste en ofrecer nuestro espacio de investigacin y trabajo dentrode el cuerpo de exposiciones de la 9na Bienal de La Habana en un intento demostrar la experiencia de la ciudad cultivada de Alamar en este espaciointernacional del arte.Proponemos lo que habitualmente concebimos como nuestra experienciaartstica comunitaria. El espacio taller- galeras- ciudad (que desglosamos mejorms adelante) es un espacio atpico desarrollado por artistas del proyecto OMNI-ZONAFRANCA, bajo el conocimiento de la Presidencia Nacional de Cultura

Comunitaria, y de la direccin municipal de cultura. Contamos con la autonoma yla autoridad de la accin artstica en este espacio, que se estructura como espaciode investigacin sobre problemticas sociales, estticas y culturales representadas a

travs del arte: realizamos tanto una accin de apropiacin del contexto culturalcomunitario del que formamos parte, con la participacin de la gente endiferentes acciones, convirtiendo el hecho creativo en una experiencia colectiva

total que trasciende nuestra estructura grupal.

Como nuestro espacio Taller-galeras-ciudad es espacio de convivencia en el cualaprendemos colectivamente a compartir conocimientos, tcnicas, recursos para el

trabajo, y en el cual participan todos de manera abierta y espontnea,pretendemos transmitir esta misma experiencia invitando o proponiendo algo(cada da durante los primeros 10 das de la bienal, y una vez cada diez das en lassemanas posteriores), tal y como lo hacemos habitualmente, propiciando el mismonivel de interactividad que como colectivo transmitimos diariamente en lacomunidad.

ESPACIOS(Espacios de formas diferentes pero de igual capacidad de asimilacin de

contenido, abiertos a la interaccin de los elementos culturales vivoscotidianamente en la comunidad).Galera Fayad Jams: espacio institucional.Taller OMNI-ZONAFRANCA: espacio intermedio.Galera abier ta: Espacio OMNI, alternativo, en el centro del barrio.Espacios pblicos adyacentes, cultivados por el grupo para la asimilacin deacciones ar tsticas (casas, garajes, pasos de edificios, calles)Estos espacios estn coordinados y comunicados entre s.


67/96

APPARATA

67

ACCIONESAccin inaugural Graffiti: el graffiti es natural en Alamar: puentes, garajes, paredesexteriores de mercados, edificios, paradas de mnibus; adems el graffiti propicia la

participacin colectiva y la interaccin con el transente. Accin al modo naturaldel Hip Hop: DJ o maestro de msica al ritmo de la accin plstica.Exposiciones personales: (miembros de OMNI e invitados).Carlos Vega. serie Querida Habana. Pintura bidimensional..Damin Valds Dilla. Collage. Pintura, Collage: parte de esta exposicin se podrver en su proceso de creacin-.Nilo Julin Gonzlez Preval. Cruzando el Mar de noche Pintura. Tcnica mixta..Ras Yoel. Pinturas. Tcnica mixta..Yaser Castellano. Puentes espirituales. Tcnica mixta.

.Ren Or tega Alfonso. Maestro del Juego. Exposicin para el luden: juegosinteractivos.Exposiciones Colectivas :.Amaury Pacheco, David escalona, Luis Eligio Prez M. Cafria.Pasarela. Exposicin de vestimentas y objetos personales..Grupo OMNI y sus invitados. OMNI perifrico. Exposicin dinmica einteractiva basada en nuestras experiencias expositivas, donde se abren las puertasa los artistas de la comunidad por convocatoria: poesa visual, experimental,esculturas, pinturas, instalaciones, muestras audiovisuales.Cabaret Potico.

Desde 1999 el grupo OMMN-ZF. realiza este cabaret: donde poesa, accionesplsticas, experimentacin sonora en vivo, msica, Rap, y proyeccin de imgenes,se suceden a un mismo tiempo, creando un espectculo que capta la mximaatencin de los elementos vivos presentes.proyectaremos un Cabaret cada dos das durante los primeros 10 das.Laboratoriums Csmico.El Taller OMNI ser un espacio permanente de intercambio creativo abier to a

toda persona interesada en compartir experiencias vitales durante los das deBienal.


68/96


68

Poesa sin fin / Alamar Express

Producir y cultivar/ Producir y no poseer/Producir y no almacenar/ aumentar y no dominar

Lao Tse

With god on aur side

Bob Dylan

Este es el 7mo ao de Poesa sin fin. OMNI-ZONAFRANCA se propuso quefuera un evento de conjugacin de todas las artes, con la Poesa como centro,

nucleando. Lo hemos logrado? Lo hemos intentado. Lo seguimosEeuuuuuuuuueeeyyy! Alto! 1, 2 3 4 Juan Carlos Flores, 6, Carlos Augusto Alfonso,8, Angel Escobar, 10, Tony Armenteros, Edwin Reyes, tocate, Ana Lidia Vega, 15, 16,17, 17? Todos los 17 de diciembre vamos al rincn de San Lzaro, arrastrando uninmenso garabato como ofrenda por la salud de la poesa. La Poesa como lamani ! Oye, para ah. Cuntame bien esa tallala idea apareci en la galera, Juan Carlos flores estaba enfermo y conversabacon Amaury sobre la salud de los poetas: fragmentados dentro y en la dispora, yla fragmentacin por extensin de la Poesa y de lo mejor del pensamientoespiritual de la nacinAmaury, Rensolis, Balesy y Luis Eligio salieron por primeravez en el 2000( la frmula: El cero = a una caja = a un garabato + otro garabato+mas otro+ todos los garabatos) con una ofrenda dedicada a las energas ocultas delpueblo por la salud de la poesa: libros de poemas, flores, y todo lo que la genteagregaba por el camino. La gente? Imagnate la gentelo del garabato se llam Ejercicio de prosperidad: ejercicio que nos rechazaronen el Saln de Arte Contemporneo, y entonces lo llevamos en hombros, elcuerpo pintado y con un ritual, por primera vez, por toda la Habana del Este, parainaugurar el 1er Saln de Instalaciones Francisco Elso Padilla en la Galera MarianoRodrguez. Marianao? No, Habana del Este1.Y al otro ao lo llevamos al rincn de

San Lzaro. Y poesa sin fin? B

Alamar Express Lab

Documents

Transcript of Alamar Express Lab