5-14 September 2019
Workshop: Altering Emotion: Fictionalizing the Evidence

DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
Henry Eric Hernández


Synopsis:

Henry Eric Hernández, an artist who researches the paradigms that offer an ideological context for contemporary autocracies, addressed violence as a common denominator among two fundamental events during the 20th century: revolution and totalitarianism. Both processes are united in their faith in revolutionary violence and the justification of repression. It's interesting to expose how this violence is perpetrated in "normal" environments in the middle of democratic crises and deficiencies. The in-depth analysis was focused on the murder apparatus conceived by Cuban society and its emotional culture. It was evident how narratives based on interpretations of emotions transformed social actors, subsuming their humanity by politicizing their feelings. A set home videos documenting repression, published "anonymously" on Facebook and YouTube, stimulated reflections among the workshop participants. They shared examples of the implantation and collectivization of feelings that are politically essential to totalitarianism, such as fear, hate, anger, and guilt, as well as other more positive ones like hope and joy. We also analyzed the practices of sensationalism, both from an ideological perspective (the power of representation) as well as its key role in the process of implanting feelings. This convergence of social actors interested in digging deeper into the emotional culture aims to boost an individual and collective mentality geared toward promoting civic engagement.

Bio:

Henry Eric Hernández
(Camagüey, 1971)

Hernández is a social researcher and visual artist trained at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana. He holds a doctoral degree from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the PollockKrasner Foundation, the Christoph Merian Foundation International Exchange Studio Program, the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, and Fundación Botín, Becas de Artes Plásticas. Perceval Press. His publications include La revancha (2006) and Otra Isla para Miguel (2008). His book, Mártir, líder y pachanga (2017), was published by Almenara PressLeiden. CdeCuba Art Books recently published the first book he edited, El fin del gran Relato (2019), and Pan Fresco, the second compilation he edited, was published by Almenara Press in collaboration with the Reinbeckhallen Foundation. Critical texts on Cuban art. He is currently working on an educational project called Transdisciplinariedad. Art and Social Sciences in Chiapas.

His curatorial interests are centered around the multiple manifestations of institutional power and the ways in which they can be examined through the platform of art. He is particularly interested in the theory of the state, national identity, and citizenship, and how these concepts are reflected in artistic and curatorial practices. His most recent work is focused on notions of the state and the formation of power that manifest themselves under the influence of geopolitics, national and cultural identity, and anthropological histories in economies on the global periphery. .