Last November, an event took place between two small countries of the Global South. It is unlikely many heard about the project. Like many stories of the region, corporate media does not report them. It is rare for stories like this to reach beyond those involved.
The Fondo de Arte Joven’s (FAJ) Academic Residency Program brought a group of nine young Haitian artists to Havana.
The Haitians attended classes, conferences, lectures, and workshops given by Cuban artists. They visited and participated in Cuba’s study centers, institutions, and art projects. The young Haitians shared experiences, knowledge, and culture with the Cubans.
The FAJ’s Academic Residency Program’s purpose is to address the barriers emerging artists face in their early careers. These challenges are universal, transcending national boundaries. Some of these include professional development, access to opportunities, and entrance into the art market. However, the situation is more predominant in emerging economies. As a result, these challenges impact how the cultural production of the Global South is promoted, exhibited, and consumed worldwide.
The Academic Residency Program was a positive experience for both the Haitians and Cubans. What we have now is a program as a vehicle for the development of young artists and people.
Cuba-Haiti—A Brief Background:
Historically, Cuba and Haiti share deep similarities. They suffer the consequences of 20th century American foreign policy in Latin America. Those policies have led to dire economic conditions and blocked development. In Haiti, social disorder has led to a decades-long deep crisis of violence. Both suffer from the consequences of natural disasters. Still, they struggle for a full recovery from the pandemic.
Overwhelming, what stands out is the severe economic crisis resulting in extreme adversity for their citizens.
From this scenario of hardship and crisis emerges a project of South-South cooperation, a little joy within the storm. From this mess, something positive and optimistic emerges.
Cuba and Haiti share a long history of collaboration, especially in the field medical assistance and disaster relief to Haiti. Cuba built hospitals and clinics. Haitian students study medicine at Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine. It is a story of brotherhood between nations, helping in times of terrible difficulty and desperate need, while the developed world turns their backs on both.
In the interviews that follow, we hear three voices: one, a participant in the program, and two from the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency (COSUDE).
Hernández: As a participant in this program, what did you gain from your experience? What experience in Cuba was the most meaningful to you?
Darlin Johancy Michel, Haitian musician: The Haiti-Cuba Academic Residency Program is the greatest experience I have ever had. First, it contributed a lot to my musical career; and the spirituality of this country gave me a lot of strength. Musically, the best experience was meeting the young guitarist Dayron Ortiz, who gave me great advice: “Don’t make music for anything other than music,” he told me. Through the FAJ, we not only learned a lot, but we also met many professionals, young creators, and beneficiaries of the platform, like Dayron.
From Cuba, I also brought back to my beautiful country the maxims of Anabel Letusé, solfeggio teacher; from Janio Abreu, the art of building an improvisation; from Ernesto Oliva, the importance of popular music; from Emilio Morales, to always start from one’s own culture; and from Cary Diez, the sense of preserving the legacy.
This experience changed many things; Cuba also healed me when I met my mother there after nine years.
Hernández: As producer of the FAJ Haiti-Cuba Academic Residency Program, what was behind the decision to bring Haitian artists to merge with Cuban artists when there is such economic hardship in both countries?
Lorenzo Suárez, Deputy Director of COSUDE and Cultural Counselor of the Swiss Embassy in Cuba: The first Cuba-Haiti Academic Residency Program of the Fondo de Arte Joven is an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge and creative experiences, conceived—above all as an inclusive space for cultural dialogue, to stimulate regional integration through culture as a strategy for development, and its positive impact on the management of the cultural heritage of countries of the Global South. With this principle in mind, we worked in collaboration with the Swiss Cooperation in Haiti, joining great efforts that made it possible for nine young Haitians to be selected, among over 300 applicants, to take part in this training experience, along with a similar number of Cuban artists. It was thus that we designed this academic program; together with the Swiss Cooperation in Haiti, we identified objectives of common interest in culture and development, contributing to mitigating the multiple barriers to the professional evolution of young artists and their access to opportunities for professional growth. Also, considering the historical and anthropological closeness of the peoples of Cuba and Haiti, which is evident in cultural products that could be considered Caribbean heritage.
For the FAJ, this experience opens new areas of advocacy focused on ensuring the permanence of its innovative and inclusive character, demonstrating that it is possible to promote South-South collaborative exchanges, despite the contexts of crisis, providing resources, knowledge, and innovative approaches in key sectors.
In this sense, the possibility of this Program reinforces the viability of legitimizing bilateral exchanges, taking advantage of the potential of the Global South, with mutual benefits, overcoming other more usual and limiting ways of approaching cultural cooperation, making it less centered on traditional North-South technical programs.
The FAJ Academic Residencies are also an open door to a strategic future of collaboration, where new donors from the state and private sectors, both in Cuba and abroad, interested in providing resources, with faster and more flexible contribution modalities, can join in to help co-finance our actions, giving them greater possibilities of sustainability.
The FAJ, created by the Swiss Cooperation in Cuba (COSUDE) in January 2023, articulates the collaboration of multiple donors and partners, as a bridge that enriches and diversifies our experience both in Cuba and internationally.
Hernández: I understand you helped create this program, which takes place in a challenging economic context for both nations. Why did you become involved in the project? Cuba’s collaboration with Haiti began in 1998, when Cuba sent 6,000 medical personnel to work in Haiti, and 1,000 Haitian medical students went to study in Cuba. We have the example also of Cuba’s emergency responses in times of natural disasters such as the earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods (Port of Gonaives) in Haiti. Cuba also built hospitals and clinics in Haiti. The western media has ignored all. Unfortunately, this collaboration between the two nations faces the same situation. Let’s speak of the silence to the voices of the Global South in the mainstream media.
What is your view of the silence towards these voices, voices clamoring to be heard and growing stronger?
Fabrizio Poretti, Head of Swiss Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland, Tunisia: First, thanks a lot for your interesting questions. I was in Cuba for a month in December 2022 and January 2023 and I spent Christmas and New Year there. It was a very nice experience, and I met the recently created youth women managerial group of the FAJ. I was siting in the living room of Lorenzo’s house and shared my ideas of a possible exchange between Haiti and Cuba. I finally discuss it with Lorenzo, who accepted this crazy idea with a lot of administrative and financial challenges. We solved them all and the project started with a wonderful happy end!!
First, I believe in people that they are the triggers of the changes and the development of countries, regions, cities, and small villages. Culture for me is the important things to translate all the crucial and daily issues of our ordinary life. We can, through music, photography and literature, for example, express anger and happiness.
For me, this exchange and pragmatical musical bridge between Haiti and Cuba is a part of the so-called South-South cooperation that I push so much in order to show that another world is possible and another presentation of the realities of these countries in crises is feasible.
There are huge potentials in both countries and the history of Haiti and Cuba are more linked that we can imagine. Said that the exchange and the travel was a part of a development of the selected artists. The situation in Haiti is dramatic and dangerous and the artists are performing without a break and every day risk their lives. To give them a peaceful moment where they can show what they can do and open their hearts to new friends of the neighboring isle. I strongly believe that now, a strong link has been established between the Haitians and Cubans.
The Fondo de Arte Joven is a special platform that helps such kind of South-South exchanges and with less than nothing, you can change the creative life of plenty of young artists. I will continue working to show another reality of all too many countries in crises and conflict that have been silenced and nobody wants to listen to them.
T.K. Hernández is co-founder and editor at Cuba Business Report. Her work has been published in various online news media publications. She has supported fundraising for Cuba’s last two hurricane disaster relief campaigns and is a member of the Cuban Friendship Association. She is also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and ACES International alliance of editors. Ms. Hernández is the author of three books, most recently, “The Cuba Interviews: Conversations on Foreign Investment and Economic Development,” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
