Cuban artists denounce femicide and racism on the sidelines of the Havana Biennale

On the occasion of the Havana Art Biennial, around sixty Cuban artists united their creations in a collective exhibition in order to make their voices heard. Through their works, they address subjects that mark their daily lives, such as femicide, violence, racism and the struggle to access spaces that are often refused to them. Paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and performances make up the exhibition Limit Alienations (Alienations of Limits), which takes place in parallel with the official program of the fifteenth edition of the Biennale, from November 2024 to February 2025, in Havana.

Among the first works to welcome visitors into the large exhibition hall is I refuse silencea painting by Leyssy O’Farril. This work, which notably combines a snake’s mouth and a clitoris, directly addresses issues of gender and racism in Cuba. Next to his daughter’s stroller, the 33-year-old artist does not hide his convictions: “Cuba is a deeply sexist society, racist in many ways, and sometimes even misogynistic”. With her blue dreadlocks, she claims that “the voices are heard a little more” to denounce femicide, emphasizing that the arrival of mobile internet in 2019 has made this issue much more visible. His works, imbued with strong messages, attack the murders of women, gender violence and pedophilia.

Artistic censorship

Cuba, a country marked by its communist regime, has introduced laws guaranteeing universal access to education and health. As early as 1965, the island legalized abortion, well before many other countries, including Latin America. However, Cuban women continue to face significant challenges when it comes to gender equality. In 2023, although 70% of Cubans over the age of 15 had paid work or were students, only 45% of women were in a similar situation, according to the Cuban Observatory for Gender Equality. In addition, the island deplored 60 feminicides that same year, placing Cuba among the most affected countries in Latin America. Cuban women suffer a lot of discrimination, particularly in the professional environment. Feminist associations, such as I do believe youhave listed 89 femicides in 2023, a figure much higher than the official one. This climate of gender violence encourages many artists to explore the different forms of discrimination and violence that women face.

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“Many of these artists have had, to some extent, their own experience or close experience with violence, which is not just physical”explains Alay Fuentes, art historian and curator of the exhibition. “Sometimes gender violence means you can’t expose”he emphasizes. In a gesture of sisterhood and mutual support, established artists share space with emerging creators, as well as an artist censored for daring to defy the restrictions imposed by the regime. Zaida del Rio, 70, winner of the National Art Prize in 2023, presents a work centered on her favorite theme of the bird woman.

Lynn Cruz, 47, takes part in this project with a video which deals with the negation of her work by the authorities and her exclusion, according to her, from official cultural spaces. The curator of the exhibition, in the absence of the artist currently abroad, specifies that Cruz recently won an award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival for his work Chronicle of the Absurd (Chronicle of the Absurd), which she co-produced with Cuban filmmaker Miguel Coyula.

Among the photographs presented, those of Maria Isabel Vida Winter, 40 years old, stand out, in particular her series Breadcrumbsan intimate interpretation of this mythological character, which she stages using a thread. The photographer explains: “How many of us women have not experienced discrimination or had to struggle? There comes a time when you have to be reborn for yourself.”deploring that, in Cuba, women are still largely sexualized.