The Biennial Project was honored to be chosen  for the 00Bienal de La Habana, the first Cuban art biennial to be organized independently of any state entity. We went to partake this past May. Within minutes of arriving at our hotel in Havana we immediately found ourselves in one of those 1950s cars you see in the tourist books about Cuba and we were on our way to our first 00Bienal de La Habana event. We gave our taxi driver the address and he did not seem 100% sure where it was and we, for certain, did not know where we were going. We were unclear even if we were going to a gallery, someone’s studio or someone’s house. None-the-less, we enjoyably buzzed through the colorful, modernist, somewhat run down streets of Havanna and we were thrilled to be in Cuba for this event. The closer we got to the venue the less certain our taxi driver was that this is where we wanted to be in this particular neighborhood. It wasn’t until we saw 4 women dressed, in what seemed to us as art gallery opening attire, did we know we had indeed arrived to find our community.

We entered through a courtyard where one of the artist’s homes is located. His house was going to be the main venue for showing, It was a lively, positive atmosphere and the local neighbors mixed well with the artists for a festive art reception. That artist whose home we were inhabiting was the alluring and luminous Nonardo Perea. We had recently friended Nonardo on Facebook and he was one of the artists we most wanted to meet. This evening we also met the organizers Yanelys Nuñez Leyva and Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and they could not have been more hospitable, engaging, charismatic and attractive.

Nonardo presented his work on the walls of his house in every room. We enjoyed walking into his bedroom and admit to peeping into his closet. We noticed illustrations we enjoyed on his refrigerator and later in the night he actually gave them to us as gifts. A lot of Nonardo’s work revolved around gay and transsexual themes and he expressed this through some scintillating manipulated photos, collages, illustrations and even a video. Most of them, he used him self as the model. We were floored. We loved his work as much as we knew we would love him. He also has two of the cutest dogs you may ever run across.

Another artist showing this evening was Francisco Mëndez. His performance involved locking himself in the bathroom and shouting ‘Ya me canse’ at the top of his lungs over and over again while the reception went on outside of the bathroom, in Nonardo’s bedroom. Ya me canse means ‘I’m tired of this’ which is in reference to what a Mexican Police chief said while looking for the bodies of missing people. It is what the Mexican people think over and over and feel nobody hears them. It was a very powerful enactment.

Also worth mentioning was the fact that the participants of this Bienal were harassed by the government of Cuba. The Cuban artists were subject to arrests, interrogations and threats. We met an artist there that night who was originally supposed to be in the Bienal but pulled out in the last minute in fear of threats he received about his employment. Cuba is not an easy place to express oneself.

It was fantastic party. The hosts of 00Bienal de La Habana could not have been warmer or more welcoming. Never letting our glasses be less the half full, checking on us, engaging us in conversation, introducing us around. They basically shared their lives with us. We also rejoiced in the fact that we were in a real Cuban neighborhood., one tourists probably never entertain to visit. We bought tamales from a bucket, walked around the neighborhood and almost got into a game of domino with some of the older men in the streets.

We were honored to participate in the recent 00Bienal de La Habana, and thrilled to begin friendships with the amazing artists who organized it. We hope to continue to collaborate with them in as many ways as possible. To begin this process, we would like to share with our audience a series of interviews we are doing with three of them. First question:

Fue un honor de participar en el reciente 00Bienal de La Habana, y nos sintimos emocionados de comenzar amistades con los artistas  con los artistas increibles que la organizaron. Esperamos seguir colaborando con ellos de la mayor cantidad de maneras posibles. Para comenzar este proceso, nos gustaría compartir con nuestro público una serie de entrevistas que hacemos ahora con tres de ellos. Primera pregunta:

WHY DO YOU MAKE ART?

POR QUE USTED HACE EL ARTE?*

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara answers:

Art has been with me since I was a child. Even without knowing about the art world, I gave shape to different materials - imitating what was around me.

My desire to be famous, and to break with the reality of deprivation and violence in which I lived led me to practice sports from childhood through adolescence.

But there was something that I was missing deeper than being good or not in athletics. My concern for people and my desire to improve the world a little bit caused the first break with my sports career.

Later it was the discovery of the world, language and power of art. From that moment of symbiosis I began a continuous aesthetic experimentation coupled with an insatiable struggle for human improvement. Searches that after all were based in that profound passion - the capacity and the possibility to manipulate  the visual.

Art is the prism through which all my horrors, mistakes, depressions, loves and my activism for people pass.

Respuesta de Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara:

El arte me acompaña desde niño. Sin tener conciencia del mundo del arte le daba formas a diferentes materiales imitando lo que me rodeaba.

Mi deseo de ser famoso, y de romper con la realidad de carencias y violencias en la que vivía me llevaron a practicar deportes desde la niñez hasta la adolescencia, pero había algo que me faltaba más allá de que pudiese ser bueno o no en el atletismo.

Mi preocupación por el ser humano y me deseo de mejorar un poco el mundo, generó la primera ruptura con mi carrera deportiva. Luego fue el descubrimiento del mundo, el lenguaje y el poder del arte.

A partir de ese momento de simbiosis comencé una continua experimentación estética aparejada por una insaciable lucha por el mejoramiento humano. Búsquedas que al final se encontraban en esa pasión profunda, que era la habilidad y la posibilidad de manipulación de la visualidad.

El arte es un punto donde pasan todos mis horrores, errores, depresiones, amores y mi activismo en pro de las personas.

Yanelys Nuñez Leyva answers:

Art is my motivation. The incredible possibility of human beings to be creative seems to me superior to our self-destructive desire, so I try to be as close to our cultural production, to be part of that medium that I feel proud and at ease.

Art is beauty as well as a continuous questioning of reality. To contribute to it’s struggles, it’s improvement and it’s promotion allows me to enjoy life and to be an active character in the world.

The human being can transform and ennoble society through art, and for this reason all support becomes necessarily insufficient.

Respuesta de Yanelys Nuñez Leyva

El arte es mi móvil. La increíble posibilidad del ser humano de ser creativo me parece superior a su afán autodestructivo, por eso trato de estar lo más cerca de su producción cultural, de ser parte de ese medio del que me siento orgullosa y a gusto.

El arte es belleza a la vez que es continuo cuestionamiento de la realidad. Contribuir a sus luchas, a su mejoramiento, a su promoción, me permite disfrutar la vida a la vez que ser un personaje activo del mundo.

El ser humano puede transformar y ennoblecer la sociedad a través del arte por esto todo el apoyo se hace insuficiente, necesario.

Nonardo Parea answers:

"Since I was a child I always believed that my life would have to be somehow connected to art, that is why in my career I have made art as much as was possible - it is something that I have within me, and that is necessary for me. For me the artistic process, influencing my way of seeing things, is so necessary that creativity nourishes me as a food, if I didn’t make art I would not survive. Art helps me to free my demons, that is why I have worked in different media, such as photography, literature, audiovisual, acting and performance. I have always been interested in everything that has to do with the creative, and being an artist somehow makes me feel like a better human being, and much more free, even if I am not.

Repuesta de Nonardo Parea

"Desde niño siempre creí que mi vida tendría que estar de alguna manera ligada al arte, es por eso que en mi trayectoria he realizado arte de acuerdo a mis posibilidades, es algo que llevo dentro de mi, y de lo que tengo necesidad, para mí los procesos artísticos, influyen en mi forma de ver las cosas, es tan necesaria la creatividad que me sirve como un alimento, si no hago arte no vivo, me ayuda a liberar mis demonios, es por ello que he trabajado en diferentes  modalidades, como la fotografia, la literatura, el audiovisual, la actuación y el performance. Siempre he estado interesado en todo lo que tenga que ver con lo creativo, y ser artista de algún modo me hace sentir ser un mejor ser humano, y mucho más libre, aunque no lo sea.

Hear are The Biennial Project 00Bienal de La Habana Artist Trading Cards we did for these 3 wonderful artists: