Yo También Exigo

Tania Bruguera is known for her controversial performance piece that was to involve Cubans standing up in the Plaza de la Revolución last December to speak for one minute about whatever they wished, under the title Yo también exigo (I also demand). The symbolic nature of this gesture (and her reputation as a dissident activist) led to her detainment by the national police and the confiscation of her passport, prohibiting her from attending the Vienna biennial this year. I had gotten word of the gathering in the plaza while I was still in Portland and was able to contact a Cuban friend in Portland about it. He was hopeful that a huge crowd would turn out and insisted that the country was on the brink of a new revolution. As we found out later at a gathering Tania hosted at her house in early March to dispel the rumors that were being spread about her and her work at the Instituto Superior del Arte (ISA) where we’re attending school, the number of people who showed up was actually quite small. As Tania insisted then, the state’s reaction, and everything that has happened with the piece up through now, is part of the performance. Her detainment as she left her house at five in the morning, the arrest of close friends en route to the plaza, and all of the national and international media attention are all part of the message: free speech does not exist in Cuba. At the reunion we attended in Tania’s home, I learned the consequences of being an activist in Cuba. The artist described the process of isolation and “strangulation” for artists and dissidents that attempt to criticize the system with little subtlety. She said as a consequence for her performance piece, she would be rejected from certain galleries and events, eventually “put in a corner so that [she] wouldn’t be able to work socially in [her] discipline.” She explained how cultural institutions like the ISA are at fault for their rejection of individuality and agency for certain artists and their work. Two teachers at the ISA who had attended the meeting there confirmed the rhetoric of opportunism that was used to defame Tania. Attending classes at the ISA, I’ve asked around about her work and been met with very critical perspectives. Although many things are opening up in Cuba, such as symbolic relations with the United States, there are still things that are very much controlled like the freedom for artists and activists to express and create in all public spaces.