Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo. Un chino de paso por Venecia, camino a Cuba

Galleria Continua and ICI Venice – Istituto Culturale Internazionale present, concurrently with the International Art Exhibition of Venice Biennale 2017, a personal exhibition by the Cuban artist Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, UN CHINO DE PASO POR VENECIA, CAMINO A CUBA.

The artist immerses the visitor in a search that is a tribute to the memories of her great-grandfather, Chinese immigrant to Cuba in the nineteenth century.

Exchanges, immigration and migration have been at the center of every phases of the world’s history. Susana’s work highlights the little known contribution of China to Cuban society, in which social and cross- culture mixing are fundamental elements.

Un chino de paso por Venecia, camino a cuba: Installation. Variable dimension. 2017

“The voices of my family members murmur in the background of the installation. The voices are recounting memories of my Chinese great-great-grandfather Arcadio Shang, who moved to Matanzas, Cuba. On long silk bands in the space is a poem I wrote in Chinese ink as a tribute to his memory and to those of Chinese migrants to Cuba in general.
The process of writing the poem for my great-great-grandfather, before, during and after the exhibition of the work, resembles the making of an ever-ending film – a continually on-going poem.

In the first presentation of the work at the former cinema Aguila de Oro (Golden Eagle) in Havana’s Chinatown, the dialogue between the reminiscences of the cinema and the reminiscences of the story of my great-great-grandfather were highly important for the work.

Fragments of history lost in the exhausted minds of my family members, who try to remember, mentally traveling back to their childhood and to places that only they know and which they are eager to share, trying to defy the nature of oblivion. Interwoven memories, absent words, present words… A story with innumerable twists and turns yet to be discovered.”

ICI Venice – Istituto Culturale Internazionale has already thrown light on this aspect of Cuban culture, in the exhibition Los Caminos de Café – Cuba in 2016. The meetings, talks and performances which will accompany exhibition offer opportunities to explore this social issue – which has resonances in Venice and the world today – together with the artist and university students. Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo

“I have a strong interest in body, gender, race and social matters, and in transdisciplinary projects and processes of creation. My various concerns relate mostly to social issues, which I generally explore through art and non-artistic disciplines. I try to offer symbolic solutions or personal responses to these issues, combining art and other disciplines into various tools for this purpose.

A number of elements connect all my works. First and foremost is my concern to represent what is real and what is presumed to be real. The realities that are hidden by specific tools created by society to hinder knowledge of them. That is why generally the main objective of my work is to use art as a tool that proposes paths of access to the essence of reality. I also wish to emphasize my interest in the spectator as an active participant in my work.”

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