As the creative expression of so many Cuban artists has been jeopardized by the burden of exile and migration, ARC and PEN International, are proud to establish the Cuban Migrant Artists Resilience Fellowship, providing essential support to ten artists.
The core objective of the Fellowship is to empower artists through a resilience grant, enabling them to embark on art projects that serve as powerful channels for themes like artistic freedom, cultural rights, human rights, and other pertinent issues.
Beyond financial support, the fellowship is designed to offer an array of specialized tools and resources to aid Cuban migrant artists in navigating their new professional lives abroad. Embracing the challenges of a new cultural environment, they will receive the guidance and mentorship to foster their artistic development. Moreover, we will help artists to establish robust networks with the global artistic community, fostering collaborations and connections that transcend geographical boundaries.
2024 - 2025 Cohort
The second cohort of fellows work in a myriad of disciplines, backgrounds, and aesthetic sensibilities, showcasing the richness of the Cuban independent art scene that remains united in their commitment to free artistic expression. Cuban artist and activist Hamlet Lavastida focuses on integrating art into the fields of history, ideology, and collective memory. He has been an influential figure in the 27N movement. Sandor Pérez Pita's, “RasSandino,” artistic career began in pre-university. As an MC, he was part of several rap and reggae groups such as “Advertencia” and “Estudiantes Sin Semilla.” In exile, he continued his activist work of making visible the Cuban situation through his art. He organized several cultural and graffiti events. Sandra Amelia Ceballos Obaya is a visual artist. She was born in Guantánamo, Cuba, in 1961. She currently works as an artist in Madrid and has been working as a creator for 39 years. She has done painting, sculpture, engraving, photography, installations, and performances. Fabiana is an audiovisual producer and graphic designer. Her work focuses on experimentation with the self-referential, in the exploration of the language of documentary; with intimate interest in the many forms of Cuban emigration. Ricardo Figueredo Oliva is a producer, screenwriter, and film director. He is the founder of Cooperativa Producciones in 2006, a film development and production group, with which he has produced the first works of several Cuban directors. Evelyn Sosa (Havana, 1989) is a photographer with a preference in working with intimate and documentary portraits. She is author of the book "Havana Intimate, through the lens of Evelyn Sosa." Yimit is a multidisciplinary artist with more than 20 years of experience combining film, animation, and visual arts. His projects address themes of identity and freedom through different media such as comics, interactive applications, music videos, graphic humor, augmented reality, and film. José Luis Aparicio Ferrera is an independent filmmaker and curator. He has directed the fiction short films Tundra (2021) and Dryland (2019), and the medium-length documentary Dreams adrift (2020). His films have been selected by festivals such as Sundance, Locarno, Raindance, Miami, BAFICI, Guanajuato and Curta Cinema. Carlos Manuel Álvarez was born in Matanzas, Cuba in 1989. In 2016 he founded the independent Cuban magazine El Estornudo and his texts and opinion columns have been published in El Pais, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Internazionale. Richard Zamora, better known as “El Radikal,” is a Cuban rapper and musician. Since he was a child, he listened to rap, which awakened his interest in music and social critique. 
2023-2024 Cohort
The first cohort of fellows worked in a myriad of disciplines, backgrounds, and aesthetic sensibilities, showcasing the richness of the Cuban independent art scene that remains united in their commitment to free artistic expression. cymoonv is a self-taught digital artist who explores alternative identities, particularly through the lens of self-perception, queerness, and posthuman subjectivities. Carlos Quintela’s work explores Cuba outside of the context of the island, focusing on the Cuban diaspora and “non-territories,” including digital spaces. Claudia Patricia Peréz is interested in the flow of information, the ways individuals react to news, along with the intersections of technology and the methods of communication in times of political crisis. David Escalona Carrillo, also known as David D’Omni, brought together the voices of dissident artists who both remain on the island and are in exile, bridging the two communities together in an act of artistic resilience. Through her curatorial work, Solveig Font ensures the stories of the Cuban diaspora are uncensored. Nonardo Perea's work centers on their queerness, non-conformity, and the diverse forms of dissident expression. Despite living in exile in Madrid, Ana Rosa Diaz Naranjo has not stopped advocating for Cuban artists and the respect of human rights in the country. Ruber Osoria views photography as a privilege and uses it to capture social inequalities and promote change. During Daniel's fellowship, he worked on, "La Culpa de Todo la Tiene el Totí", a “musicalized” graphic novel that gets to the heart of mass protests for greater freedoms that shook Cuba on July 11, 2021 (also known as “11J”). Amaury Pacheco del Monte is an artist and activist for cultural and civil rights. His work includes poetry, sculpture, performance, audiovisual work, and independent cultural production.
