Workshop: Creating Spaces to Dissent

DATA OF INTEREST

GUEST:
Shahidul Alam


Synopsis:

In these times, when autocratic regimes around the world intervene to stop processes of dissent, the photographer and activist Shahidul Alam will join us to share the complex and innovative strategies they have implemented in Bangladesh to generate creative spaces of resistance. He will present practical examples of artistic interventions and the process of constructing the institution as strategies that have permitted the artist and activist and his team to resist, at a time when the majority of voices are silenced. He will talk, too, about his period of imprisonment and how he transformed his time in prison into a space of creative exercise.

Shahidul Alam was detained and interrogated for almost 4 hours by officials from the Ministerio del Interior on his arrival to Havana, on the afternoon of last January 17th.

According to Shahidul Alam, he was warned to not attend the conference about his work and the review of young artists´ portfolios organized by the Artivismo Hannah Arendt (INSTAR), because “he would be violating his tourist visa.” His visa was granted by a travel agency in Washington, after having been instructed by Cuban diplomatic authorities in this city that this was the proper procedure. Alam declared that “the agency wasn't sure if they were authorized to handle this travel permit and gave him the tourist visa after asking the consulate, who was fully aware of the purpose of the trip,” clearly detailed in the invitation from INSTAR presented at his consultar interview. According to the website of the MINREX tourist cards are not valid for the citizens of around 20 countries, among these Bangladesh. These travelers can only enter Cuba with a A1 Tourist Visa, which is emitted only by the Cuban consulate and not by a travel agency. Upon his arrival, immigration officials warned him, additionally, to “not associate with the people who work at INSTAR,” about whom they hurled a series of defamatory accusations, among them, that of being financed by foreign organizations.

(We wish to note that in 2019, our director, Tania Bruguera, filed a legal complaint of defamation against the newspaper Granma and Cubadebate for such public accusations. We are awaiting a resolution).

At 10:00 AM on January 18th, the officials who had interrogated him showed up at the Plaza Hotel, where he was staying, to look at the pictures he had taken in Cuba and to “inform him that at 2:00 PM he would be picked up by functionaries from the Ministry of Culture who will give him guided tours of cultural institutions and spaces” for the rest of his stay on the island.

Shahidul Alam notified about the official program, where he was hosted and guided by the director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Jorge Fernández, and the president of the Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas, Norma Rodríguez Derivet.

It reflects on the selective nature of the law that Cuban authorities, without changing the status of his visa, organized a governmental program, with material and human resources of the Ministry of Culture, violating (using their terms) a tourist visa. When an activity is official it is called “cultural tourism,” and there are even lucrative state-owned companies that serve this end. But, when it is a direct initiative of artists it is not tolerated, although there is no law prohibiting Cuban or foreign artists from seeing each other's work, having professional exchanges or learning from one another. The Ministry of Culture stole resources from an independent, non-profit project, like ours, where it is well-known that the money does not proceed from any government but rather from the efforts of over 900 people in a micro-sponsorship program.

It is curious that when someone is a guest of INSTAR they are dangerous but when that same person can be brought over to institutions, they are a VIP guest of honor. It was very disheartening that the artist failed to fulfill the purpose of their invitation to Cuba and to see frustrated a productive dialogue with Cuban citizens, activists, intellectuals and creators who, in their independent practices, attempt to generate social, communicative and artistic strategies inspired in the principles of social justice and denouncing authoritarianism for which the work of Shahidul Alam is a reference point world wide.

This unfortunate situation does not constitute an isolated incident; it exemplifies the legal vulnerability and abandonment of independent Cuban spaces working for tolerance towards diversity of thought.

INSTAR will continue to support and be part of these initiatives.

Bio:

Shahidul Alam

Photographer, writer and curator, Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018. He has given conferences at universities such as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. His work has been exhibited at the MOMA and the Tate Modern. He did a doctorate in chemistry before turning to photography. John Morris describes his book My journey as a witness as “the most important book written by a photographer.” He founded and directs Drik Picture Library, a media organization established in Bangladesh in 1989, specialized in areas such as law, awareness campaigns, production of communication materials and trainings. Drik is based on principles of social equity and the usefulness of media to expose conflicts related to human rights, democracy and forms of government, training working class children, women, disabled people and people from minority groups.