PADILLA’S SHADOW

A Commemorative Act in Honor of the 50^th Anniversary of the Poet’s Confession

A virtual performance that will be streamed via social media

Date: April 27^th, 2021

 

 

On April 27, 2021, twenty Cuban intellectuals will perform a choral reading of the confession of poet Heberto Padilla in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his legendary auto-da-fe. The collective performance will be directed by Coco Fusco, with design by Hamlet Lavastida. The performance will be streamed online via Facebook and other social networks.

 

Heberto Padilla's confession took place on April 27, 1971 at the Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba, immediately after his release after thirty-six days of imprisonment and interrogation by Cuban state security agents. This ritualized public penance, in which he denounced himself, his wife and several close friends as counterrevolutionaries, sent shockwaves through literary circles and altered the world's view of the Cuban revolution. The confession was transcribed, published and distributed to embassies and press agencies as proof of the Cuban government's right to imprison the poet and strip him of his professional rights. However, the gesture failed as political theater and was seen abroad as Cuba's version of a Stalinist show trial. As a result of the negative international response, the film of the confession made by documentary filmmaker Santiago Alvarez was suppressed.

 

The event took place before an audience of Padilla's colleagues and served as a warning to the Cuban intelligentsia and a harbinger of what was to follow: a decade in which dozens of Cuban artists and writers were banished from public life.

 

"Why do we have to remember Padilla's tragic submission to the authority of the state?" asks the project's director, Coco Fusco. "Fifty years later, Cuban intellectuals are still fighting for the right to have rights, for the legitimacy of independent thought and creative endeavor. And they continue to be subjected to arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations and social death. They live in Padilla's shadow".

 

Padilla's Shadow: A Commemorative Act is a project of the San Isidro International Movement and 27N.

Promotional Video

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Conference: Digital Culture and the Public Sphere in Cuba

CONFERENCE
Havana, Cuba	The Revolution Recodified: Digital Culture and the  Public Sphere in Cuba Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March 15-17, 2013 Various locations, please see program details below Admission free, reservations required at Eventbrite
The Revolution Recodified is a three-day conference at The New School and New York University about the impact of digital technology in Cuban culture and society. It is organized by Coco Fusco and Chris Stover and supported by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, among others. For more than a decade, Cuban artists, musicians, independent journalists and librarians have teamed with computer scientists and engineers on the island and in the diaspora to foment a socially engaged and politically independent culture using digital technology. The conference explores the ways that digital technology is transforming Cuba’s cultural and political landscape by challenging the state’s longstanding monopoly on communications media and its hegemonic control of cultural production and distribution.  Program Friday, March 15 New York University, Hemmerdinger Hall 100 Washington Square East 4:00 p.m. Introductory Remarks 4:30 p.m. Keynote: Yoani Sánchez  8:00 p.m. Video program: Despertar (2011) and Operacion Alfa (2012), Ricardo Figueredo Oliva Screening at Juror Lecture Hall, Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East   Saturday, March 16 The New School 55 West 13th Street, Room 5311 12:00-2:00 p.m. The Internet and Social Media in Cuba: Their Relevance and Impact Panelists: Ted Henken, Ariana Hernandez-Reguant, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Moderator: Coco Fusco 3:00-5:00 p.m. Cuba in a Global Context: Social Media and Political Change Panelists: John Kelly, Yoani Sánchez, Nitin Sawhney, Thomas Werner Moderator: Sean Jacobs 7:00 p.m. Direct from Havana, Cuba Pablo Menendez and Mezcla NYC Musical Performance  Sunday, March 17 The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor 12:00-2:00 p.m. The Development of Autonomous Cultural and Public Spheres in Cuba Today Panelists: Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, Ana Dopico, Pablo Menendez, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Moderator: Chris Stover 3:00-5:00 p.m. Plenary Session: What’s Next? Cuba’s Evolving Political and Cultural Landscape Participants Cuban-born scholar and writer Odette Casamayor-Cisneros is Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut-Storrs. Her work focuses post-Soviet Cuban Literature and Blacks and Blackness in Contemporary Cuban Cultural Production. Ana Dopico teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. She works on the literature, culture, and politics of Cuba, the Americas, and the Global South. Ricardo Figueredo Oliva graduated from the International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños. He has produced over 20 short films, as well as working as a producer for musical theater and the celebrated Danza Abierta group directed by Marielena Boan. Coco Fusco is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer and Associate Professor at Parsons The New School for Design. She is a 2013 Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of a 2012 United States Artists Fellowship and a 2003 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Ted A. Henken runs the Cuba-themed blog El Yuma and teaches Sociology and Latin American Studies at Baruch College, CUNY. His research focuses on Cuban micro-enterprise and the emergent Cuban blogosphere Ariana Hernandez-Reguant is a cultural anthropologist and has published widely on Cuban music, media and visual arts. She runs the cultural blog EthnoCuba as well as the associated Facebook interest group. Sean Jacobs is a scholar of media and international affairs and an Assistant Professor at The New School. He was born and grew up in apartheid South Africa, where he finished college before studying for a master’s in political science at Northwestern University on a Fulbright Scholarship. John Kelly is the founder and lead scientist of Morningside Analytics. His research blends social network analysis, content analysis, and statistics to solve the problem of making complex online networks visible and understandable. This event is made possible thanks to support from The New School’s Academic Events Fund, Parsons Cross School Funds, Eugene Lang College, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, NYU’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese Literature and Culture, NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences, NYU’s Department of Comparative Literature, and The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.

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Aglutinador Laboratorio anuncia su próxima exhibición

Con esta invitación informal el espacio independiente con más experiencia en La Habana anuncia una propuesta auspiciada por The New School:

Este viernes 16 a las 6:00 pm en "aglutinador country" (territorio para las Artes libres de Dengue):


Leslie Hewitt y William Córdova (USA)
Curaduría: Coco Fusco
Financiado por: The New School University, New York

Sandra Ceballos

Calles 6 y 25 No 602 Vedado. La Habana

TEL. (537) 52913215

www.espacioaglutinador.com

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