Many of us remember from three years ago, at the 10th Havana Biennial, Roberto Fabelo’s intervention of the National Museum of Fine Arts’ façade. The Cuban artist’s gigantic cockroaches come back to our minds today as we look at the Casa tomada (Seized Home) project by Colombian artist Rafael Gomez, who was invited to the 11th edition of the event.
After a press conference by the artist, AxE News had the opportunity to talk with him about his intervention of the Fausto Theater, in Havana, with almost 600 ants. We share with you today some of his thoughts…
«Perhaps the most important thing when materializing this project was the experience of the people who live the staging process. And what we planned since the very beginning was to make public the experience of the people in exchanging with the piece later via internet, the social networks. Pictures of the people who were involved have been already posted, and they were actually very ‘fun’ moments. All those who passed by, walking down the avenue (Prado), had the impression that in some way they were traveling, maybe as part of the tight group crawling up the façade of the theater.
«Here in Havana we only presented 600 pieces, but the original number was 2,500. It has a truly shocking impact at the urban level because it plays with the possibility of achieving images that can stick in the mind of common people. As we stage Casa tomada, I heard the experiences of people who had witnessed maestro Fabelo’s installation, and that somehow, connected it with my work, which I found particularly attractive because it is thought as the continuation of the actual action of the Biennial on the individual.
«The best thing was to feel the surprise: one person going to work passed by in the morning and then on his way back, he found that 50 ants had been already installed; people who passed by at night were scared because it was a full moon night; in addition, there was a group of individuals who were shooting a video and then everybody thought it was a movie. It was a different experience for each person, from the tourists to the neighbors.
«My initial plan for Havana was to set up the intervention at the Capitol, being an icon of the city and having a stunning architectural structure. However, I’m not unhappy at all with the final location, the Fausto Theater, because of this feeling of emptiness you experience as you walk around the place. Filling that void was a must, and we’ll seal that plan as the people who walk by every day, for a month, come into contact with something ´different´.
«I’m honored to have been invited to the Biennial. TheCasa tomada project started in Colombia in 2006, but the first intervention was made on May 20 of 2008, at the Altar of the Homeland (Bolivar’s last home), with 400 ants. Later we reached the Customs building, through which all immigrants entered Colombia in the 1940s. The last place was the headquarters of the Congress of Colombia, where we installed 1,300 ants. This is a social-cultural project that at first represented the forced displacement in Colombia, using monuments not to make it too visible. Nevertheless, as it crosses the borders of my country, it can be seen from the viewpoint of emigration: in 2010 we were at the Caribbean Triennial (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) and now we have come to the Havana Biennial, two years later. Then, we are going to Florida, United States.»
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