Hamlet Lavastida

Hamlet Lavastida (b. 1983 in Havana, Cuba, lives and works in Havana) creates installations made of posters, prints, collages, photos, and video clips compiled into comprehensive archives. He primarily uses texts, images, and symbols, as well as political speeches and ideological terminologies, from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the period in which socialism became increasingly institutionalised in his native Cuba. By re-appropriating and re-interpreting this material from an artistic perspective, Lavastida seeks to question the political developments of that era. This publication showcases Lavastidas most recent installation at Knstlerhaus Bethanien. Through his personal confrontation with those cultural archives, which are not recognised as such in Cuban society, Lavastida creates a kind of register and calls for a critical examination of Cubas history. In particular, he condemns the failure to raise awareness about and address the scars of the past in todays Cuba.