The Organizing Committee of the 11th Havana Biennial is officially announcing a press conference for May 28 at 10:00am at the Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Arts on 22 San Ignacio, Cathedral Square, Old Havana’s Historic Center.
Some excerpts from the official press release on the eve of the news conference are quoted below since they clarify some of the concepts that will dominate this month-long event stretching from May 11 to June 11, 2012 under a slogan reading “Artistic Practices and Social Imageries.”
“[…] when we speak of social imagery we are not referring to a theoretical body, but rather to the way people imagine their social space and express themselves through cultural and historic referents, as well as the symbolic scope they acquire by means of the arts.
The social imagery expresses the ties and relationships among groups of people that embrace the entire society, sharing common interests and establishing levels of legitimacy. It’s the place where notions of the public, of citizen spaces and the different aspects that make possible communicative interaction are eventually whipped into shape.”
[…]
“Since 1986, workshops and certain actions in a number of communities of the Cuban capital were conceived, all of them expressing awareness of the role the city and its social objects play in the resizing of art’s implication in different contexts.
Now it’s not about trying to retake the imageries that make up a tradition, but to think of how discourses that imply or compromise both citizens and spectators in a complex scale are conformed. The public should not stay in the place of cult, traditionally represented by the large museums, the art galleries or the international events. It’s also indispensable to listen to the noisy streets. We should come up with ways out of the anointed locales to think of passersby, of those who stay away from the specialized circuits and work in the site specific, the time specific and the public specific. We’re interested in generating an environment of affection and sensitivity that start out from more primary relations. We need to imagine the city and its people in the context and in the neighborhoods, in ways that brings us closer to the complexities generated by existence.”
[…]
“This biennial aspires to explore the different meanings of the public, bearing in mind the well-known interventions in urban spaces, the interactive and ludicrous and multidisciplinary projects; the social integration and working processes within the communities, and even the supports that have gradually enhanced access to technology and today’s communication means.
It’s in our best interest to bring awareness of the underpinnings of the social networks and of how they become spaces for socialization among people from different parts of the world and in which the most intimate profiles of the human beings are both diluted and put through their paces.”
[…]
“In the wake of all these considerations, for the 11th Havana Biennial it’s important to foster dialogue between the inside and the outside, to work on living arts and bring spectators closer and closer on a permanent basis. We have set out –this time around more than ever before- to turn the Cuban context and the public scenes into a makeshift lab of artistic experimentation.”
For more information: contactobienal@wlam.cult.cu
WIFREDO LAM CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS
22 San Ignacio, Cathedral Square, Old Havana
Tel: (0537) 8646282
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