IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 3 ENGLISH | Page 77

brouhaha in the 1970s. It was proclaimed the
“city of the future.” Today, all it reveals is filthiness and abandon. Young people here have no
recreational spaces; the only movie house is
closed and decaying.
In one of the many improvised parking garages in
front of a building inherited from the socialist,
European model, Fito and Mirita started to offer
rap music concerts. The enthusiastic audience
would jam pack it. The concerts were censored
under penalty of the location’s confiscation. This
amphitheater, which used to buzz with the annual
Rap Festival and weekly music events during the
1990s, has now rusted due to the salt air and
serves local youth and their reggaetón parties.
Able to overcome institutional obstacles, Fito and
Mirita managed to hold a tribute concert to “Fila”
there; he was an underground musician who died
young and had great creative capacity. Now they
produce and edit Misceláneo, an independent

journal dedicated to alternative art, and in particular, to one of Cuba’s most mistreated genres:
hip-hop.
Verónica Vega: How do you approach art?
Mirita: Through my relationship with Fito; I was
never directly a member of OMNI, so I can say
that I saw art and what OMNI did through Fito.
But in 2010, I participated in a workshop whose
goal it was to create a project. I thought about doing a painting and poetry show, and that turned
into the Casa Gaia Project, with poet Juan Carlos
Flores. I started with enthusiasm: I have no training, just the street and what I’ve been able to learn
along the way.
Fito: My story with art is basically the same as
OMNI’s, the wood carving workshops at the Alamar Casa Cultura, where we’d receive classes
and sell our work at the fair. I didn’t have any
training as an artist or promoter either.
Vega: What did OMNI end up meaning to you
both?

Estudiantes sin Semilla

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