In an open letter artist and activist Tania Bruguera has announced she will not attend the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (opening today), where she was due to give a lecture performance, The Art Newspaper reports. Bruguera says she will remain in Cuba to continue fighting the government’s controversial law Decree 349, which sets to increase cultural censorship.
The artist was arrested early last week along with other cultural figures and released on 6 December, as they were preparing a sit-in at the Ministry of Culture to protest the law. The Decree, which prohibits exhibitions in public or private spaces be approved by the Ministry of Culture, was introduced on 7 December and is to be implemented gradually. ‘The government is creating a “cultural police” in the figure of the inspectors, turning what was until now, subjective and debatable into crime,’ Bruguera says.
The Kochi-Muziris Foundation responded in a statement that it ‘stands with free expression, and supports the right to debate and free communication for the global art community’.
12 December 2018
