Workshop: BACKWARDS

DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
Juan Sí González


Synopsis:

Cuban creators, curators, journalists, critics and intellectuals interested in the work of Juan Si González, in the history of the project Art-De and the working conditions of independent artists in the last few decades, share their experiences, anecdotes and information about this project in the absence of the artist, who was stopped from attending by State Security. Here you will find testimonies of people close to the artist and the collective he was a member of; also reflections about similarities with a period that seems to be repeating itself. An intergenerational dialogue about independent artistic production and the ethical and civic responsibilities that, despite the limitations of their context, Cuban creators have taken on as a tradition.

This is his testimony written as a diary:

Testimony of my last trip to Havana (February 2020)


Friday, January 31.

I arrived to Havana Friday January 31st around 4:00 PM. My wife Paloma, my youngest daughter Mila and I arrive on United Airline flight #6306 from Houston, Texas. I was very tense because on repeated occasions I have had difficulty entering or leaving Cuba. To my surprise, the customs process was fast and when I went through the immigration checkpoint they said to me: “Welcome to your country, Juan Enrique González López”. Around 5:00 PM we arrived at the house we were renting a room, where we had stayed on our last 3 trips. We called the mother of my older daughter, Frida, the primary reason for our trip, so that she would bring her over the next day.


Saturday, February 1.

Very early in the morning I went for a walk alone to take pictures. I went to the port to see the sunrise. I came back, we ate breakfast and we went to Obispo Street to get a SIM card and data for internet. When we got back home, my daughter Frida and her mom were waiting for us. It was a very emotional reunion. Then I added the names and numbers of my friends in Havana to my phone and organized the presents I brought for my family and friends. In the afternoon I explored the area and tried to find the address of INSTAR. It was closed. I was surprised how close it was to where we were staying. I sat on the stoop of a house on Tejadillo Street and wrote a note for Camila Lobón, with my local phone number.


Sunday, February 2.

I went for a walk early in the morning. Before going home I stopped at the Sevilla Hotel to have a coffee and a cigarette. I made a plan for the day and read for around an hour. I was trying to connect with myself, to ground myself, before having to go do all my family stuff. I went home, we had breakfast, and we went for a walk to the Malecón. When we got back, my sisters and their families were there waiting for us. We all went out to dinner. There were 9 of us. We found a place to celebrate the birthdays of my two daughters: Frida and Mila.


Monday, February 3.

As I have been doing, I went for a walk early in the morning again to take pictures of the city. I had a coffee at the Hotel Inglaterra. I got back home around 9:00 AM. Later I met up with Camilia, we talked and I gave her an envelope with information about my art, a book about the actions of the group Art-De and a disk where my presentation was organized. She left around an hour later and told me she would be at INSTAR almost all day. I was really impressed with her purity, honesty and talent. It was very inspiring to see a young artist with that capacity and civic commitment. That same afternoon I stopped by INSTAR to see the space and check out the room where my talk would take place. She gave me a tour of the institute. Then she made coffee and we sat on the patio to prepare for the event. She started sending the invitations. I was a little nervous thinking about reuniting with so many dear friends and new colleagues I knew from our exchanges on Facebook. Around two hours later I went home and went out with my family.


Tuesday, February 4.

I went out to take pictures. I took a long route: I walked around the capitol buildings until I got to Chinatown, and walked all of Zanja. I stopped to see an exposition by the Argentinean artist Jorge Macchi, at the gallery Arte Continua. Then, on the way back to the Malecón, I sat down to watch the ocean while I thought about my years at the ISA, the events of G and 23rd, the detentions, the isolation and when I left for good, in 1991, heading for Panama.That pure and naive drive to create a public space for gathering and deliberative practice that had changed my life forever. I had now been living outside Cuba for more years than I had been alive before I had to exile. I got home around noon and spent the rest of the day together with my family.


Wednesday, February 5.

Routine walk. I took pictures of rough neighborhoods in Centro Habana. Around 8:30 I went back home and picked up a tote bag with 8 books that I had brought to donate to the INSTAR library: 4 contemporary art books, in 2 of which Tania Bruguera appears. The other 4 were really good books by friends that I admire, Cuban authors in exile. Everyone at home was asleep and I went out again, this time with the bag and my camera to get something to eat and have a coffee. Walking down Empedrado Street, I thought of the Hotel Plaza because I had been able to connect to the internet there. I sat in the empty café at a table with 4 chairs. I ordered a small ham and cheese sandwich and a coffee. I started to try to get online but I gave up: the connection was very slow. I took a sip of coffee, lit a cigarette and started reading. Suddenly, 2 people appeared, pulled out the chairs and sat at my table, without asking for permission: one facing me and one to my right. They were agents of State Security, in plain clothes. They told me immediately that they didn't want to make a scene and that they were there to have a friendly conversation with me, to warn me about my presentation at INSTAR. They called the waiter. They ordered coffee and asked for another ashtray. One of them took out a pack of H. Upmann Selecto cigarettes. He put it on the table, next to my Marlboros. He gave the other a cigarette. They both started smoking. They were in control. I was very nervous. They sat there in silence, took a couple sips of coffee and one of them said that he had to go to the bathroom. He left his phone and the lit cigarette in the ashtray. I realized my phone was on the table and they could see it. I wanted to put it away and also my notebook, but the agent said that they had seen me taking pictures early in the mornings, letting me know that they were very well informed of my movements. I said yes, I liked to take pictures with the early morning light… He interrupted me and immediately asked if I knew Tania Bruguera very well. I agreed again, “we studied together at the ISA like 30 years ago.” He said did I know that she received money from “institutions that are enemies of the revolution”. I said I had no idea, that what I knew was that she had a lot of international prestige as an artist, that she was very highly respected. I said that she and INSTAR, knowing I would be in Cuba, informally invited me to talk about my work. He insisted that it was Tania´s house, that the institute was “a story…it's nothing more than a house for meetings of dissidents and detractors from the true cultural institutions of our country. Besides, isn´t it true that you coordinated and planned this far in advance?” I told him we had talked over Messenger about how when I got to Havana we could decide what day, since I was busy with my plans with my family.

The other agent came back. He sat down and started to intimidate me. He told me it was this simple: “If you do that presentation at that house, we can separate you from your daughter, since you, as a U.S. citizen, don´t have any legal custody over her, and on top of that, you would be committing a crime against the state, because you lied to us on your customs form when you arrived, you said you were just here to visit family and you didn't declare that you were coming with the intent to participate in a clandestine event at a so-called “institute” that is not recognized as such. We can also invalidate your passport and you won't be able to return ever again to see your family. But, if you really care about speaking and sharing your work with specialists and Cuban artists, we can coordinate so that you can do so legally at one of our cultural institutions that have availability before you leave”. I told them no, because I was censored by those institutions and I won't do anything in official spaces, at least not for now. To talk about my work extra-officially is not a crime…

The agent to my right picked up my cell phone, he looked at it for a second and he connected it to a device that I had never seen before. He typed something on a little keyboard, I think it was my name, and the next thing I knew he had transferred my data from the phone where I had all the numbers of my contacts in Havana. Then he erased them from my phone and gave it back to me.

He brusquely asked me what was inside the tote bag that was between my legs on the floor. I told him they were art books. He picked it up, set it on his lap and opened it. He took out 3 large envelopes that said INSTAR Library on the outside. Without opening the envelopes to look at the books, he said that those books shouldn´t have entered the country and they confiscated them. They stood up, still holding the envelopes, and told me “We´ll keep observing you closely. No more photographs, and if you do the presentation tomorrow at that house on Tejadillo, beware the consequences.”

I stayed there, sitting in silence for a long while. I didn't want to get up, I lit another cigarette and thought about the absurd stubborness of this government in domesticating a whole nation to establish homogeneity of thought. I thought about the perverse habit of defaming, stigmatizing and forcing to submit all those who keep trying to generate ideas and independent thinking of their own.

I got up. My legs were shaky. I went to the bathroom. I washed my face. I paid the check. I left the hotel heading home. I looked at the faces of each person I passed and thought I saw a potential agent. I didn't tell anyone what happened, so as not to scare them. I joined in with my family´s activities. We went for a carriage ride. I had to endure an hour and a half of the driver spouting Eusebio Leal.


Thursday, February 6.

I slept until late. I didn´t go for my walk. I was tense, angry, nervous and unmotivated to go take pictures. I thought about everything they had said to me, about my daughter Frida. I thought about everyone who I could be unwittingly putting in danger. I was filled with guilt.

I thought about how this repressive apparatus was the only thing that worked in my country and that it was the only thing keeping the whole system standing. I connected the camera to my wife´s computer and uploaded all the photos, I hid them in one of her folders with another name.

We had breakfast and I helped my sister and my niece to prepare for their trip back to Pinar del Río.

Paloma, my two daughters and I went for a walk. Then we went back to Obispo to connect to the internet, and then to buy used books, while they bought souvenirs. We returned home and I asked my wife to take them out for a walk at 3:00, to be able to concentrate and think about the presentation. Around 4:00 PM, an hour before the presentation, the doorbell rang. I was alone in the room looking at the images on the computer. The woman whose house it is opened and I heard a conversation, I cracked open the door of the room and I could see an officer, a middle aged woman in uniform with a captain's insignia. I could see that she was checking the guest registry and asking questions about me. She was very insistent in knowing through who and how I had gotten a place to stay so close to the house of Tania Bruguera. The woman said that we had stayed there 3 times before. She asked her for the registry and the emails exchanged for the reservation. She told the woman that I had been meeting with artists hostile to the revolution and asked her if anyone had come to visit me. She told her that I was going to do a presentation at 5:00 PM at Tania´s house, the dissident that lives and houses that center at 214 Tejadillo. She emphasized to her that I was not allowed to leave the house until noon Saturday, that I was not allowed to do the presentation, that I could not receive any visitors and that if someone came looking for me she had to inform them. They threatened her with taking away her license for lodging a hostile exile in her house. When they went to leave they asked her if everything was clear, to remember that while we were leaving in a few days, she would still be there and it was her income on the line. Ten minutes later my wife got back with the girls, came into the room and asked me how I felt, if I was ready for the presentation. We went into the bathroom and I told her everything that had happened. She was very worried. We talked about what we could do. We didn´t want harm to come to the woman or anyone else. She had treated us very well and we couldn´t believe that just by giving a presentation we could ruin someone's livelihood like that. I went out onto the balcony to look if I could see any agents. The woman was very scared but she didn't want to talk to me. She shut herself in her room. I went to the kitchen and made coffee, we thought for a while and right at 5:00 PM we decided not to go. They had built a trap for us laden with guilt and that fell on people who had to stay there in Cuba. I told Paloma to go out, to tell Camila they had prohibited us from leaving the house, that they had threatened me and I couldn't make it. She and Camilia exchanged messages.


List of the books they confiscated from me:


1. Global Feminisms

2. Fresh Cream

3. Installation Art in the New Millennium

4. Pasos Peligrosos: Performance y Política en Cuba (Coco Fusco)

5. El estante vacío (Rafael Rojas)

6. Tumbas sin sosiego (Rafael Rojas)

7. Archivo y terror (Carlos Aguilera)

8. La fiesta vigilada (Antonio José Ponte)


Friday, February 7.

I didn't leave the house. I tried to read. I took pictures from the balcony. Every so often I would look out to see if I could see any agents. A group of friends came over. They yelled up from the street. I went out on the balcony and we briefly talked. I told them I was ok, but I couldn't come outside to say hi. I told them I was under surveillance, that they should leave because I didn't want to negatively affect them.

My wife Paloma had to go out to get food and bottles of water. That night I called a taxi. I had to take my daughter Frida back to her mother's house. We dropped her off, said goodbye and went back to the house in the same car.


Saturday, February 8.

We got up early, had breakfast, packed, and said our goodbyes around 12:30 PM. We headed towards terminal 2 of José Martí airport. Our plane was taking off at 4:30. We went to check in. First my daughter, then me. When they saw my Cuban passport, they told me I was missing a stamp, that they didn´t know how they had let me in without that extension and that I couldn't leave. They wanted to check Paloma´s and she said no, we would leave together. They told me I would have to go to the immigration offices in Miramar.

We argued briefly. Paloma started to talk in English and said she would make some calls. An officer came over and took us to an immigration office inside the airport. We were in there waiting around an hour and a half, until a high ranking official saw us. She was annoyed, she asked me if I was a U.S. citizen and I said yes. She asked for my passport. Looking at her computer, she said I had left in 1991 for Costa Rica and immediately kept going to the United States. She said I shouldn't have been allowed to enter, that they should have deported me back to Houston. She was looking and looking at my migratory status on her screen and finally she said she was going to be benevolent and flexible, because it had been their mistake for letting me in in the first place. She put a stamp on my passport and wrote a note, then put the paper inside my passport and gave it to another officer, who asked me to follow her. They took me back to check my ticket. They separated us: they sent my wife and daughter to door #6 and me to door #1. They searched me, they sent me in first to a room where I was alone with 2 officers. They searched my luggage and my backpack, looked at the pictures on my camera and they confiscated 6 books I had bought at a used bookstore.

List of confiscated books:


1. El 71_ Anatomía de una crisis (Jorge Fornet) about the Padilla affair.

2. Enemigo Rumor (José Lezama Lima)

3. El reino de la imagen (José Lezama Lima)

4. La isla en peso (Virgilio Piñera)

5. Entre Eros y Tánatos (Reinaldo Arenas)

6. Migración y Exilio: Estudio Psicoanalítico (León and Rebeca Grinberg).

They also confiscated a medal engraved with the image of José Martí that was given to us as a present. I have a copy of the documentation of the confiscation. I also want to add that my wife and daughter witnessed how they treated me and were terrified.


Bio:

Juan Sí is a Cuban interdisciplinary artist, graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Arte de La Habana and of the ISA. He participated in the first two editions of the Havana Biennial. In 1987 he co-founded the Grupo Art-De (art dealing with civil rights) and started doing interactive performances independently on the streets of Havana, as well as clandestine videos about social conflict in Cuba. When he emigrated to Miami in 1993, he started to create site-specific mixed media like installations and large-scale photographic series. He has lived in Ohio since 2003. His work has been exhibited in the Frost Art Museum, the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum, the Miami Art Museum, the Museum of Latin American Art, the Museo del Barrio, the Exit Art Gallery and the Centro Georges Pompidou, among others. His workshop at INSTAR about his experiences with Art-De, one of the mythical projects of the 80s that ruptured the limits between art and political activism, was frustrated by State Security.