I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA podcast is one of the most influential artists working in the world right now, TANIA BRUGUERA!

Hailed for her installation and participatory performance works that blur the boundaries between art and reality, Bruguera has dedicated her life to making work that explores freedom of expression, immigration, totalitarianism, and human rights.

She has brought attention to the strict control of Cuban authorities by confronting visitors at Tate Modern with performer police officers on horseback, to setting up an open debate on an official-looking stage at the Havana Biennale to give people license to say what they want for one minute…

Her work – often set in the framework of the theatre – has continued to push art to its limits and grant space for important and difficult conversations to take place. As she has said:

“In a way, when you talk about politics, there is a lot of theatre involved. And what I’m trying to do with my art is how can we break the classic theatre where everything has already been decided, into a place where people can add something to the discourse”.

Born in Cuba in 1968, Bruguera was raised during the era of Fidel Castro by a diplomat and minister father in the Castro government. She moved three times – to Paris, Lebanon, and Panama – before returning to Havana, where she graduated from the Escuela de Arte San Alejandro, and would go onto complete MFAs in painting and performance in Havana and Chicago.

Since then, Bruguera has researched both the promise and failings of the Cuban Revolution, in performance pieces that allow her audience to unite and gather together and see and experience what lies behind governmental propaganda. Not only do these works speak universally, transcending time and place, but they are a great comment on the promises and failings of institutions and governments today.

The founder of the first performance studies programme in Latin America, known as the Behaviour Art School, Bruguera is also Senior Lecturer in Media & Performance, Theater, Dance & Media at Harvard University, where we are recording with her today, and, as an artist I have admired for a very young age, I really can’t wait to find out more.

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My new book, How To Live An Artful Life: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-live-an-artful-life/katy-hessel/9781529155204

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.famm.com/en/

https://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

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Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic

Music by Ben Wetherfield