ABSTRACT
In early 1997 Art in General/the Bronx Council on the Arts in New York realized a remarkable project by bringing a group of the newest generation of performance and visual artists from Cuba to the USA and enabling them to work in residence at various art spaces around the country. Along with her colleagues Abel Barroso, Sandra Ceballos, Juan Antonio Molina, Manuel Piña, and Lázaro Saveedra, the 28year-old Tania Bruguera had the opportunity to travel to the USA for the first time and to work for several months as a guest of the Art Institute of Chicago. The political goal of the hosts for the project was clear: to create a free exchange of artistic and intellectual ideas in the face of almost 40 years of an economic and ideological blockade against communist Cuba, and thus to open up an alternative space for communication about cultures and identities in a conflicted transnational situation. The residencies and ensuing exhibitions created by the guests were also to involve grassroots dialogue and community involvement, and thus find their place outside the commercial sphere of the market.
