Race, Class and Gender
Yaima Pardo and Her Revolutionary Family
Nonardo Perea Havana, Cuba
T
his young woman breaks stereotypes with her audiovisual proposals and public interventions. She projected herself to the world as a futurist and avant-garde woman. Among other national and international awards and recognitions, she is the recipient of Caminos Awards( Martin Luther King Jr Center) for the documentary At the End of the Road( 2011); Noemí Award( Brownstone Foundation) and Chambers Award( UNESCO) for the documentary Off Line( 2013); Félix B. Caignet Award( UNEAC) for Best Direction in the documentary Antigone, the Process( 2013). We are going to talk with Yaima Pardo about her new audiovisual project— in favor of the Cuban LGBT movement— oriented towards change and acceptance of diversity.
You are currently involved in the project Cause and Chances. What do you propose? In a general sense, my work aims to reflect from the perspective of the politics that we face as citizens and to think politics as a reflexive activity that raises new social constructions. Cause and Chances want to think about marriage, the Family Code, the patriarchy and other social constructions that limit the citizens ' rights. I am very interested in what is happening to the LGTBI community and its activity, because I believe that, beyond defending their own rights and their individuality, this community advances against all types of discrimination and that makes its activism much more complete. I am interested in visualizing it, because it can be a real engine for social transformation. It seems to me that they are acting from the grassroots. At times, the presence of Mariela Castro— as a relevant public figure— has been important. As some activists say, the sense of homophobia, which is politically incorrect, is no longer visible, but they go further and demand many other things. So, we want to create with our work a kind of agenda for change and to create a kind of document that can be socialized, taken to the national family and considered by the policy makers. In the end, what every artist proposes is to rebuild the country, to think about the possibilities of something new and oriented towards the future. That ' s where the thing goes, towards a country where everyone, without exclusion, would feel happy and have the same opportunities. That ' s what we want with this work.
At what moment arises your interest in being an advocate of LGTBI rights? Why do you feel motivated? I feel an artist has certain responsibility with human beings to visualize their problems and make us part of their feelings, their aspirations or sufferings. I am even interested in talking to all people from the LGTBI rights
30