Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara

Over the hiss and crackle of the telephone, a voice cuts through the static: “To the artists, curators, theorists, collectors, and art lovers in general who will visit the 2024 Havana Biennial, I invite you to participate in and be a part of, my work, called ‘Fe de Vida’ [‘proof of life’].” The voice continues, “The Biennial was born as an opportunity for the periphery and the displaced, and since it is not possible for me to attend the event, why not bring a fragment of the Biennial to the artist?”

The voice belongs to the Cuban visual artist, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, unjustly deprived of his freedom since 2021. On December 2, 2024, Otero Alcántara observed his 37th birthday from behind bars in the Guanajay maximum-security prison.

Yet “Fe de Vida” is not Luis Manuel’s first creative confrontation of the country’s state-led Biennial, nor is it his first project conducted while in prison.

Dissent Manifest: A New Generation of Independent Art

Self-taught and from humble beginnings in Havana’s El Cerrito neighborhood, it was at 16 or 17 years of age when he began to discover the art world. But, Luis Manuel recounts in an interview, “since I was a child, I had a certain sensitivity towards the other, towards abuse. I deformed pencils and drew faces, flowers, and shapes…[but only as] entertainment without knowing what art meant.” He would describe his growth in the arts as a relationship of binaries, independent and state, elite and the common man, or as he would note, “a black boy [and] athlete in a world of posh whites.” It was a racial tension that was also ever present as hurdles in his creative practice. “Being black in Cuban society is a stigma, it is a mark that you constantly walk with. And you have to work twice as hard.”

Otero Alcántara’s artistic oeuvre is multidisciplinary, addressing subjects from the exoticization of Cuban people and notions of Caribbean visuality as demonstrated in diverse works ranging from the 2015 performance piece “Welcome to yumas” to a 2021 series of sketches titled “Still life. Turning violence into art” that critiques the surveillance state and explores its connection to intimacy, power, and emancipatory desires.

In 2016, together with the curator Yanelys Núñez, Otero Alcánatara created the Museo de la Disidencia en Cuba, a resource dedicated to tracing the legacy and importance of dissent in the formation of the Cuban State in the colonial, neocolonial, and revolutionary periods. 

Amid the death of Fidel Castro that same year and the transition to the presidency of Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018, the Museum and other independent initiatives marked a new wave of independent artistry and activism spanning creatives from diverse walks of life.

In the San Isidro neighborhood, located at Damas 955, Otero Alcántara’s home emerged as a sacred site of independent creation and activism. A space for the peripheral and marginalized, collectively advocating for artistic freedom and later formally constituting the “San Isidro Movement (MSI).”

MSI was largely born in response to the proposed Decree 349, first introduced in April 2018. The legislation –that sought to restrict free expression and criminalize independent art– became a mobilizing call for various independent enclaves on the island, leading Otero Alcantara and his counterparts to launch campaigns such as #NoAl349.

In May 2018, Luis Manuel, along with various artists and cultural professionals involved in MSI and #NoAl349, organized the #00Bienal de la Habana, the country’s first independently organized art biennial. With the tagline “In Every Studio a Biennial,” the event arose in response to tight government control over artistic works and the cancellation of the official biennial that year. The multi-day event constituted a diverse creative cosmovision, reportedly having 70 artists participate, among them 40 Cubans and others from countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Romania, Spain, the United States, and Ukraine.

At that moment, Luis Manuel and the burgeoning independent artistic movement gained increased visibility and, with it, the ire of Cuban authorities.

Repressive Ruptures: Intimidation and Imprisonment

The backlash against Otero Alcántara, MSI, and the larger artistic community was swift and escalating, exacted through surveillance, interrogations, detentions, and more.

In an interview from December 2020, Otero Alcántara reported being confined in jail cells at least 60 times over a two year period. The myriad of intimidatory tactics employed against him including surveillance, threats, house arrests, and state-led harassment campaigns, reached a boiling point on July 11, 2021. Also known as 11J, the date marked a moment of mass social mobilization, with thousands across the island participating in peaceful demonstrations in at least 58 towns.

In the last video he uploaded to his Instagram, Otero Alcántara stated in part “cost me what it may, I am going out on the street.” As he attempted to join the protests, he was detained.

On May 30 and 31, 2022, Otero Alcántara, along with the rapper and MIS co-founder Maykel Castillo Pérez ‘el Osorbo,’ and three others, faced a closed-door trial in the Municipal Court of Marianao in Havana with a heavy police presence. Otero Alcantará was charged with “insulting the symbols of the homeland, contempt of court, and public disorder,” and was sentenced on June 24, 2022 to five years in prison.

Carceral Creations: Challenging Confinement

In the third consecutive year deprived of his freedom, Otero Alcántara continues to face threats and psychological violence amid the continued hunger strikes he has undertaken in protest of his unjust incarceration.

Despite these challenges, Otero Alcántara has remained firm, evolving his practice throughout his imprisonment. From the pastel portraits of clowns to a chess tournament, a project interrogating themes such as time and the Schödinger Cat paradox, and now “Fé de Vida,” the creativity of Luis Manuel remains untethered, free of government repression and the carceral regime.    

In an interview from prison, Otero Alcántara explained: “Luckily, I am able to paint here. I think it is one of the few spaces of my own freedom….I believe that thanks to art, to painting, to drawing, I have been able to survive these three years.”