Hamlet Lavastida

Hamlet Lavastida Cordoví is a Cuban artist and activist born in Havana, Cuba, in 1983. He studied at the San Alejandro Academy of Arts and the Higher Institute of Art.

Lavastida belongs to a generation of Cuban artists whose work is censored on the island for transgressing the norms set by official cultural institutions. His political and social art draws from revolutionary iconography, ambiguous discourse filled with euphemisms, historiographical reconstruction, repressive techniques, the failed economic or social policies promoted by the Communist Party of Cuba, and everything that allows him to dismantle and disassemble the Cuban totalitarian regime.

He has a long-standing career and a well-established body of work, particularly recognized abroad, where he has participated in several artist residencies: Trinidad and Tobago (2006), Warsaw, Poland (2012), Colombia (2018), and Germany (2020).

Her work has been exhibited at the Łaźnia Contemporary Art Centre in Gdańsk, Poland; at Links Hall in Chicago, United States; at The 8th Floor in New York, USA; at the Wifredo Lam Centre in Havana; at the Pontevedra Museum in Galicia, Spain; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and at the International Performance Art Nippon Festival in Tokyo, Japan, among other venues.

In 2018, he participated in Animas, with Carlos Garaicoa, in Madrid, Spain, and also in Bienal 00, in San Isidro and Damas, in Havana.

In 2015, he presented his exhibition "Iconocracia. Image of Power and Power of Images in Contemporary Cuban Photography" at the Atlantic Center of Modern Art in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and at the Basque Museum-Center of Contemporary Art in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.

In 2020, he launched the exhibition "Cultura profiláctica" in Berlin at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien gallery. There, while he was in an artist residency, he was taken aback by the events of November 27, 2020.

On February 8, 2021, during a segment of the Cuban television news, presenter Humberto López showcased and read a chat from Lavastida in which he proposed to mark the highest denomination banknotes currently in circulation on the island with symbolic stamps representing the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and 27N. Later, Hamlet himself stated that this was a completely private Telegram chat where he suggested marking the banknotes as an act of civil disobedience, but that this idea was never discussed and was ultimately dismissed.

For this reason, and under the charge of "incitement to commit a crime," Lavastida was arrested on June 26, 2021, while he was under health quarantine following his return to Havana from Germany four days earlier. The statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior days after his arrest adds to the previous charges the offenses of having "repeatedly incited and called for" acts of "civil disobedience in public spaces" through the use of social media and "direct influence over other counter-revolutionary elements." It also points to the "execution of actions similar to those that have occurred in Eastern European countries, with a provocative intent."

The artist was transferred to Villa Marista, the headquarters of the State Security Department, an institution known for having a prison specialized in the detention of political prisoners. There, he was stripped of his name and assigned the number 2239. He underwent long and distressing interrogations. Lavastida acknowledges that he experienced hallucinations during the three months he was there and that after requesting psychological help, he was allowed only one meeting with a specialist. He has also pointed out that he managed to make a phone call after asking for it seven times and that during that entire time, he was taken outside to get sun just four times.

On July 20, 2021, a photo of Lavastida’s son living in Poland was published, in which he requested the release of his father through a message. The photo went viral and led various campaigns demanding the release of the artist, who had committed no crime and had never been afforded the right to a lawyer.

On September 25, he was released from prison and forced to leave Cuba along with his partner, the poet and activist Katherine Bisquet. Following efforts by Polish diplomats in Havana, the couple arrived in Warsaw on September 27, 2021.

Following their arrival in Poland, Bisquet explained that both were exiled as a condition for Hamlet's release. The activist shared a heartbreaking account on her social media on September 26, detailing their experiences during the 90 days of incarceration and the process of leaving the country. She describes how Lavastida was taken to the airport from a secure location where he had been isolated since September 20, from which he was unaware of its whereabouts, arriving with his head between his legs after coming from Villa Marista. In her text, Bisquet also noted that the process through which both were released and exiled was referred to multiple times by more than one agent as “political rationality.”

The activist and artist Tania Bruguera was also involved in Hamlet's release, as State Security offered her a plane ticket in exchange for leaving the island. In return, Bruguera provided a list of several individuals who should be released. Lavastida was on that list. Although the government did not agree to release everyone, the activist left the country along with Hamlet and Bisquet.