With Shared Horizons, the 15th Havana Biennial kicks off today

With the participation of some 172 Cuban artists and 230 foreigners, the 15^th Havana Biennial kicks off today, which, under the slogan Shared Horizons, is a showcase for contemporary art from the global South.

According to Nelson Ramírez de Arellano, director of the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, the event will have a special program celebrating its four decades of existence.

Commemorative exhibitions will be held, such as the retrospective dedicated to Cuban art and its presence at that event, with works by the most representative creators of the contemporary panorama in the Caribbean country.

Ramírez de Arellano highlighted the Casa-Bienal exhibition, which will explore the historical relations between the Casa de las Américas and the Havana Biennial as promoters of international visual arts.

The fifteenth edition will be based on the principles of mediation, collaboration and transdisciplinarity to facilitate, as usual, the exchange between artists and the public, said the director of the event.

According to Ramírez de Arellano, the idea will materialize in the sociocultural projects Quisicuaba, in Los Sitios; Akokán, in Los Pocitos and in other communities such as Regla and Casablanca.

The Biennial will transcend the geographical limits of the capital to reach other cities such as Pinar del Río, Matanzas and Holguín, which represents the opportunity for everyone to enjoy the proposals that the event brings, he said.

There will be over 50 projects in which students and teachers from Cuban art schools are linked, as well as exhibitions distributed in several venues in Havana such as the Lam Center itself, the Fototeca de Cuba, the Estación Cultural at Linea and 18 streets, the museums of the Historic Center and the Center for the Development of Visual Arts.

On Friday, on the opening day, the exhibitions "Small Nameless Stories" and "All the Lighthouses of the Peruvian Coast," by artist Luz María Bedoya are scheduled to open the event; as well as the one dedicated to Venezuela and its participation in the First Havana Biennial, among others.

This event, which brings together important creators of regional and world contemporary art, will run until February 28, 2025.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff