A people-to-people festival

The International Video Art Festival of Camagüey features the latest national and international video creation, and also provides participants and the general public with an opportunity to explore the city and exchange with artists, curators, art students and academicians openly and spontaneously.

As a people-to-people event, FIVAC is designed  to merge every activity within the festival´s program with the daily routine of the city. This is an opportunity for participants to create and live their own experiences.

The screening in squares and other places beyond the capital city, the city tour for participants, the night parties, and the partaking of people who are not directly linked to the fields of art, all in all these features have contributed to enriching the festival and increasing the number and diversity of participants.

Hierarchies tend to soften during the festival days, and is frequent to see artists, curators, students and the public in general mingled in either a discussion about visual aesthetics or dancing at the night parties. No doubt, this, along with the high standard quality of the competition, is one of the peculiarities of the festival that appeals most to returning participants. 

This way, FIVAC also serves as a reunion spot for old friends that have not met in years for various reasons, and also as a space where new projects, friends and even love, emerge.

The 7th edition of the event does not seem to be any different from previous editions in this respect. The great number of artworks and people willing to attend the event this year, attest to that. Even though the Organizing Committee has refused to provide further details, there is a trip to Santa Lucia Beach, a concert by a renowned Cuban artist in the closing ceremony and night parties featuring national and international DJ s to be confirmed as part of the program

In a nutshell, FIVAC is an opportunity to dialog about contemporary video creation, get to know one of the most beautiful and culturally-enriching cities in the country, and a unique option for everyone willing to live, experience and get to know this part of Cuba. 

José Raúl Gallego Ramos 
Traducción: Odeiny Gavira

FIVAC: Previews

Only a week before the end of the selection process of artworks in competition for the 7^th International Video Art Festival of Camagüey, the Organizing Committee of the event has released some good news as a foretaste of what´s coming:

-          Up to this moment, the festival has received almost 250 artworks from more than 30 countries representing each of the five continents. Even though most of the pieces are single-channel, there is a wide variety of video creation. There is video dance, video performance, video documentation, video animation, and digital art.  In a nutshell, there´s a little bit of everything. 

-          Nine curatorial projects have been confirmed to be screened at The Next Resistance, such as “Over the real”, by the Italian curator Maurizio Marco Tozzi, “VIDEOsPAIN” by Iuri Lech from Spain, and “Under the subway” by the Spanish artist and curator Antonio Ortuño. This section of the event will also present curatorial projects from other festivals, such as the International Video Art Festival “Between Islands”, and Cortos de Soria, as well as video arts from Cuba and the Caribbean. According to the coordinator of The Next Resistance, “the space will exhibit an appealing and diverse gamut of visual languages”.

-          The Theoretical Event will welcome Dr Martha Pérez Ibáñez, consultant professor at the University of Nebrija, Spain, who will deliver her lecture “The essence of the immaterial: the artists and the Spanish video art and new media market.” Similarly, Antonio Ortuño will introduce his topic “Low Cost Events, the other side of art”. They all add up to the current complex, controversial, and context-dependent changing topics in the fields of art. Also, Dannys Montes de Oca, director of Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art will provide details about the upcoming edition of the Havana Biennial.

-          Among the guest artists, the event will welcome the American artist Andrés Serrano who will present some of his current projects. Likewise, the Cuban curators Juan Delgado and Pepe Fernández will talk about the project “Detrás del muro” (Behind the wall).

The participation of other artists, art theoreticians and projects that will continue to raise the bar for this 7^th edition of FIVAC, are subject to confirmation over the next days. But up this moment, everything seems to be right on track…

Por:José Raúl Gallego Ramos
Traducción: Odeiny Gavira