March and
April 2009
The 10th Biennial of
Havana, to be held from March to
April 2009,
marking 25 years since the first
of these exhibitions was
organized,
will be an opportunity to look
back on our history and to
reflect on the principles that
have underpinned this gathering
of artists from Latin America,
the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and
the Middle East, in an
atmosphere where genuine
togetherness, among us and the
international community in
general, has prevailed.
Since 1984, we have focused our
attention on South artists whose
works express concerns and
conflicts common to our regions,
many a times of a universal
character. Topics which have
piqued the interest of artists
have included the tensions
between tradition and
contemporary reality, challenges
to the historical processes of
colonization, the relationships
between art and society,
individuals and their memories,
the effects of technological
development on human
communication and the dynamics
of urban culture, issues which
have been addressed through
myriad visual manifestations
that operate within the cultural
system.
The Biennial, however, cannot
ignore the geo-political changes
which have taken place in recent
years and, consequently, the
growing number of countries
whose conditions begin to
resemble those of the so-called
South and those which, in a
precarious state of development,
seek to join the economic block
of more privileged nations. In
addition to this, the
Third World,
a concept which has underpinned
our work for nearly twenty five
years,
has become a vague term whose
meaning is constantly shifting.
Our interest, in view of these
phenomena, is to broaden the
participation criteria with a
view to including artists from
other countries and regions and
those who, owing to recent
migratory processes, have come
to be part of the First World, where their cultures and idiosyncrasies take
root.
The Biennial will take place in
a supposedly globalized world
which shows us many faces,
complex phenomena and conflicts,
made more complex by a discourse
which tends to emphasize
economic hegemony, dependency
and the control of information
and to ignore the different
stages of development and
socio-political leanings that
co-exist in the world.
Similarly, the co-existence of
age-old forms of expression
which have lost none of their
original vigour with the most
sophisticated of symbolic
productions, stemming from the
development of new technologies,
unveils the fallacious nature of
the homogenizing discourse about
globalization.
What this entails is recognizing
a new logic of economic,
technological and human
interconnections which express
themselves in the dynamic
relations between the local, the
regional and the global and
which, in the tradition of
reflecting upon these realities
began over 20 years ago, invites
us to pay close attention to the
singular nuances and contextual
particularities which stem from
involvement in and resistance to
globalization. Thus, we are
brought face to face with the
many influences, tensions and
re-formulations of the question
of identity, repeatedly
subjected to scrutiny by
historiography, critiques and
artists themselves. When it
seemed we knew everything,
or almost everything,
about ourselves, new internal
and external relationships place
us before the mirror once again,
reminding us that identity is a
process, bringing about its
contamination and broadening our
knowledge about what's
different.
If we live in an era in which
some of the distinctive
characteristics of our regions
and countries begin to suffer
changes and even tend to become
diluted through a complex
process of integration, our work
must become more visible, the
expression of agents of change,
the important and creative
actors we are, not of subaltern
or peripheral voices.
The 10th Biennial of
Havana will address, on the one
hand, the complexities of a real
and active process of
integration to the global
order and, on the other, the
capacity to
challenge the homogenizing
farce this process presupposes.
In its treatment of these
issues, the gathering will act
as a kind of laboratory where
trans-disciplinary,
process-based and experimental
works will converge, in the
field of visual arts and other
cultural manifestations.
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