The hip-hop music video “Patria y vida” was created by members of the San Isidro Movement-- a group of visual artists, digital artists and musicians. The song sparked a national uprising on the island on July 11th 2021 which for the first time in 60s years, the population across the island openly protested food insecurity and the lack of basic freedoms on the island.
The human rights organization CADAL, which is based in Argentina, hosted two panels on the impact of the July 11, 2021 protests in Cuba and the role of the artists within the San Isidro Movement: The two videos are in Spanish, and although include different panelists, were given the same titles: “A un año del 11J: Arte y resistencia en Cuba.”
This event took place at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo, Uruguay, with Carolina Barrero, activist and art historian, Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Interim Director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, Gloria Rodríguez, Senator of the Republic of Uruguay, and Matilde Antía, Mayor of the CH Municipality, just days before the one-year anniversary of Cubans taking to the streets to make their voices heard, demanding freedom, better living conditions, medicine, food, liberty, and dignity. Diana Arévalo, Consultant on Freedom of Artistic Expression at CADAL, moderated the event.
"One Year After 9/11: Art and Resistance in Cuba” took place at UCEMA on July 1st and featured presentations by Carolina Barrero, Cuban activist and art historian; Cecilia Noce, coordinator of the CADAL Project for the Defense of Freedom of Artistic Expression; Rut Diamint, senior researcher at CONICET and professor at Torcuato Di Tella University; Laura Tedesco, vice dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus; and Rubén Chababo, professor at the Seminar on Memory and Human Rights at the National University of Rosario and Academic Advisor at CADAL, we commemorated July 11th, 2021, the day Cubans took to the streets to make their voices heard, demanding freedom, better living conditions, medicine, food, and dignity. The right to peaceful protest and the right to freedom of expression are NOT crimes. Let us not be complicit in the silence sought by dictatorships. We were joined in moderation by Diana Arévalo, Consultant on Freedom of Artistic Expression at CADAL.