WHAT IS IT?

The bay, we were thinking how to perform a nuclear action is a laboratory for artistic creation and social research started in 2017 by the artist Alessandra Santiesteban that takes as its starting point the Juragua Electronuclear Power Plant, the Nuclear City and its surroundings.

 

In the beginning, the research focused on the generations born during the construction and abandonment of the industrial work. How did they live? What were your dreams? How did they relate to the recent past? However, after the discovery of a story published by an official national newspaper, the project takes a new turn. The facilities of the Plant were to be put back into use...

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Actions developed per year:

 

2019

- The girl who looked to the other side

Performance

Developed as a research project for the Master in Performing Arts and Visual Culture at Reina Sofía Art Center Museum and the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain.

It addresses the relationship between cinema and literary creation as a process: an unfinished process and also a process that can be intervened and redefined in time. It raises the idea of transforming a space that was once utopian and huge (the CEN) into the metaphor of utopia and its possible manifestations, such as the radical state of an amusement park.

From actions carried out with the public, different textual and visual materials are activated (historical photographs, newspaper clippings, video fragments, objects, sketches of the film "The Bay", models, and other materials from the research archive in general ), which function as an invitation to the creation of another reality free of the prejudices and taboos that surround that space today to debate politics, desires and the construction of happiness.

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Photos HERE

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The girl who looked to the other side was made with the support and accompaniment of Master in Performing Arts and Visual Culture, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Reina Sofía Art Center Museum.

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2018

- The bay
Documentary. Experimental. Fiction 21:42 min. 2018. Production Company: Independent

Directed by Alessandra Santiesteban & Ricardo Sarmiento

Synopsis: At the facilities of what would become the Juragua Electronuclear Power Plant, the construction of a national hazardous waste dumpster is planned. The residents of the Nuclear City, a little less than four kilometers from the place, know little about the issue and the consequences that this could unleash. Yunet, a film director, wants to make a film to tell what is happening...

 

Watch the film HERE. 

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- The bay, a process book

Sinsentido, independent publisher, 2018

Introduction by Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas

Paraphrasing Christilla Vasserot (French translator of The Bay): The book is a "documentary friction" in the Nuclear City. It's (de) built like a track game. This is Yunet's story. This is the history of Cuba. This is the story of a crisis. It's the expression of vertigo before the fall.

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The bay, we were thinking how to perform a nuclear action had the artistic accompaniment and the direct participation of:

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Ricardo Sarmiento (Theatermaker and Visual Artist)

Atilio Caballero (Writer. Director of Teatro La Fortaleza)

Arianna Cepero Almeida 

Taimi Blanco Ruiz

Aleksandr Naranjo

Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas (Writer. Performing and Visual Artist)

Laura Rodríguez (Writer)

Souvenir musical group (Celia B. Pérez Erraste, Lilliam Chacon, Sahivel Fuentes y Saydy Vera)

Petra Röhler

Yoen Solana Traba, Heberto Gonzalez Perez, Abel Domínguez, Olga Pérez, Gema Pérez, Daylin Barroso, Sayli
Arias, Osmani Domenech
Susana Hernández, Katherine Bisquet Rodríguez, Rimantas Ribaciauskas, Lumbeh Montero, Mary Lou

And many other people (from the Nuclear City, Cienfuegos, Havana...) who were present in the different phases of the project

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With the support of German embassy in Cuba, Goethe Institute, Norwegian embassy in Cuba. And the accompaniment of National Council of the Performing Arts of Cuba, Teatro La Fortaleza, Ludwig Foundation, Sinsentido independent publisher.