Tatlin's Whisper #6 (Havana Version)

In a performance at the 2009 Havana Biennial, Tania Bruguera provided a temporary platform for the free speech normally denied in Cuba. Members of the exhibition’s audience were invited to take the stage and speak uncensored for one minute, after which time they were escorted away by two actors in military uniforms. A white dove was placed on each speaker’s shoulder in allusion to the one that landed on Fidel Castro during his first speech in Havana after the triumph of the 1959 revolution. Part of a series of works that seek to activate viewers’ participation by recontextualizing powerful images from significant events, Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version) confronts the widespread apathy that has followed in the wake of several failed social revolutions.