Cuban Design and Private Initiative

Cuban Design and Private Initiative

November 19, 2013

Daisy Valera



HAVANA TIMES— "Cuban design ? difficulties" is a simple and useful

formula that could well be used to summarize the situation of this

practice on the island.



The promotional and support strategies which the Cuban revolution

developed in many cultural sectors (such as popular music, ballet and

others) were scant in connection with the design arts, something rather

surprising when we recall how intensively propaganda posters were used

to convey political proclamations to the people in the early 60s and the

many movie posters produced to present the "new Cuba" to the world.



There are perhaps only two important moments in Cuban history where we

catch sight of an effort to make the cultural policies of the State

coincide with the development of a design movement: the creation of the

Empresa de Producciones Variadas ("Artistic Production Center", EMPROVA)

in 1974 and the founding of the Instituto Superior de Diseño ("Higher

Institute for Design", ISDI) in 1984.



Five decades of indifference and misunderstandings within the field has

resulted in a lack of communication among designers, the absence of

historical records on Cuban design practices, a lack of journals and

catalogues aimed at the study or promotion of the art, a shortage of

designers working within the industry, an industry that isn't even

capable of achieving the quality of the products manufactured in the

30s, 40s or 50s and a world of designers who find it extremely difficult

to join official institutions in the field.



The situation of Cuban design, be it graphic or industrial, is an

unavoidable issue today, when the country's new economic reforms have

resulted in a Havana that has been re-conquered by the advertisements of

fledgling private businesses.



The venue of Laboratorio de ideas sobre el diseño ("Ideas About Design

Laboratory"), Havana's Factoria Habana art gallery is perhaps one of the

key spaces where the issue is being debated today, through talks and

conferences aimed at describing current practices in the field and the

material and aesthetic solutions to different challenges being deployed

in Cuba at the moment.



At these gatherings, the Piscolabis team, made up by social

communication expert Claudia Angurel and architect Maria Victoria

Benito, touches on the role that design strategies play in the

development of private initiatives today.





Bazar Cafe Piscolabis

It was precisely the use of such strategies, in the design of both

spaces and products that secured the success of Bazar-Cafe Piscolabis,

an establishment opened by the duo which has recovered its initial

investment in only a year.



Piscolabis is an oasis of modern design enclaved in a wasteland of

chipped walls, fading facades and balconies propped up with improvised,

wooden scaffolding.



The commercial aggressiveness of its owners has allowed them to avail

itself of an experimental strategy aimed at new businesses promoted by

Havana's Office of the City Historian.



To date, the Office of the City Historian has rented out a mere 8

locales destined to ornamental plant stores, restaurants, hairdresser's

and other establishments.



These locales, which had either been shut down or which were being

underused, are located in Old Havana, Havana's main tourist area. A

stone's throw from the Cathedral, on San Ignacio street, Piscolabis

enjoys a privileged location within the old town.



The bazar-café exhibits and sells Cuban-made crafts, mainly lamps,

jewlery and textile products. The more noteworthy of the latter are

cushions decorated with the motifs of traditional Havana mosaics.



The shop – which, according to the owners, seeks to rescue the aesthetic

values of pre-1959 Cuba – has fashioned an identity for itself through

the clever use of colors, textures and distinctive materials, a world of

ochre tonalities, recycled bottles, texturized tracing paper and mixed

fiber textiles.



As an artistic project, it aims at becoming an aesthetic alternative to

the products imported by the State to stock the country's hard-currency

stores and to traditional crafts, dominated by multicolored percussion

sticks and maracas.



Piscolabis boasts of a rather sui generis design which nonetheless

insists on calling itself "Cuban."



Source: "Cuban Design and Private Initiative - Havana Times.org" -

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=100143