ICI Venice – Istituto Culturale Internazionale in collaboration with Galleria Continua present, concurrently with the International Art Exhibition of Venice Biennale 2017, a personal exhibition by the Cuban artist Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, Un chino de paso por Venecia, camino a Cuba, curated by Laura Salas Redondo.
The artist immerses the visitor in a search that is a tribute to the memories of her great-grandfather, Chinese immigrant to Cuba in the nineteenth century.
Exchanges, immigration and migration have been at the center of every phases of the world’s history. Susana’s work highlights the little known contribution of China to Cuban society, in which social and cross-culture mixing are fundamental elements.
“The voices of my family members murmur in the background of the installation. The voices are recounting memories of my Chinese great-great-grandfather Arcadio Shang, who moved to Matanzas, Cuba. On long silk bands in the space is a poem I wrote in Chinese ink as a tribute to his memory and to those of Chinese migrants to Cuba in general.
The process of writing the poem for my great-great-grandfather, before, during and after the exhibition of the work, resembles the making of an ever-ending film – a continually on-going poem.
In the first presentation of the work at the former cinema Aguila de Oro (Golden Eagle) in Havana’s Chinatown, the dialogue between the reminiscences of the cinema and the reminiscences of the story of my great-great-grandfather were highly important for the work.
Fragments of history lost in the exhausted minds of my family members, who try to remember, mentally traveling back to their childhood and to places that only they know and which they are eager to share, trying to defy the nature of oblivion. Interwoven memories, absent words, present words… A story with innumerable twists and turns yet to be discovered.”
ICI Venice – Istituto Culturale Internazionale has already thrown light on this aspect of Cuban culture, in the exhibition Los Caminos de Café – Cuba in 2016. The meetings, talks and performances which will accompany exhibition offer opportunities to explore this social issue – which has resonances in Venice and the world today – together with the artist and university students.
ICI Venice is a cultural non-profit association whose objective is to develop international cultural resonances between East and West, between ethnographic art and a contemporary element (art, architecture, design, etc …), as well as the promotion of the venetian heritage. Created by young Italian and French people, ICI Venice, in less than two years, has become a cultural actor recognized by the Ca ‘ Foscari University, the MiBACT both for its scientific rigor as for its communication on the cultures of the world. In a few years ICI Venice has created a loyal audience who visits the ‘Magazzino del Caffè’ to discover little-known subjects like Nepalese shamanism, the Zan Par, Bhutan, and emerging young artists.
Fact sheet:
Location: ICI Venice – Magazzino del Caffè: Campo San Simeon Grando – Rio Marin, Santa Croce 923 | 30135 Venise
+39 041720507 – info@icivenice.com – www.icivenice.com
Dates and opening times: 08.05.2017 – 26.11.2017 | from Thursday to Monday | 10:30am – 1pm / 2:30pm – 6pm
Opening: 08.05.2017 – 11am FREE ENTRY
Special openings for the Biennale week: 09.05.2017 – 10.05.2017 I 10:30am – 1pm / 2:30pm – 6pm