Episode 26: Tania Bruguera’s Fight for Artistic Freedom and Human Rights in Cuba
Image credits: Estudio Bruguera LLC., Claudio Fuentes
Art Persists is back with another episode featuring Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera!
In the episode we chat about Bruguera’s 30-year career as a pioneering artist advocating artistic freedom and human rights in Cuba and beyond. We discuss how she uses art as a tool of social change, transforming her audience into “citizens” to bring about real change. She coins the practice Arte Útil - art as a tool.
We go on to discuss the systematic oppression she has faced for her work at the hands of the Cuban state, beginning thirty years ago with the publication of a magazine to today where she lives in forced exile. We end with Bruguera discussing her complex relationship with institutions and the controversy surrounding her current exhibition at the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende in Chile.
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Catch up on previous episodes of Art Persists.
About
Tania Bruguera (b. 1968, Cuba) is an artist and activist whose performances and installations examine political power structures and their effect on injustice. Her provocative works explore the ways in which art can be applied to everyday political life, tackling global issues of power, migration, censorship and repression in ways that turn “viewers” into “citizens”, seeking to transform social affect into political effectiveness. For Bruguera, art is a platform where new political potentials can be tested, performed and realised.
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