BAR CANDELA Y LOS DOS LADOS

“Bar Candela y los dos lados” (Bar Candela and the two sides)
is inspired by Cuban bars and popular culture as well as the difficult political and economical situation on the island. The word “candela” means candle or light, but is also used as an exclamation to enforce whatever situation you are talking about, good or bad. CANDELA!
Our main inspiration for Bar Candela is Bar Silvia in Cayo Hueso, Havana. It is shaped like a triangle, and opens to the streets on two sides. The regular clients are slightly marked by ”la lucha” –the fight to keep up existence. Victor the barman serves cheap rum and provides the necessary framework of this social institution.
We will enter Café Sting, a bar and café that has an important social and cultural identity in a local community in Norway and bring in some of the Cuban experience. This is also a platform to investigate some other phenomena connected to Cuba.
Numerous Cubans have left their island since the revolution in 1959. It is difficult to find reliable statistics, but the presence of Cubans throughout the world is evident, as well as the stories of absent relatives and split families you can hear on the island.” Bar Candela y los dos lados” investigates and presents some of this division between the island and the outside: from the conflict between national Cuban television and Miami based exile media to the live Internet conference of two musicians living respectively in Madrid and Athens. They were childhood friends, but now have not met for 15 years.
The bar in Cuba is -as elsewhere- an important arena of communication and exchange of news and information. Rumors, jokes and slander comments on the often quite tense situation of managing daily life and an uncertain future.
Since Internet is not generally available to the pubic and the other media channels like the government controls newspapers, radio and television, the bar might be the only “communication tool” available to many customers. Erratic infrastructure is a general problem. Electricity blackouts are common. Tools for communication such as computers and mobile phones are hard to come by.
The bar is of course also a place for music, dance and fun. Cuban popular music has been exported globally and is a vital part of tourism. Music is a way of expression that is central to Cubans and can be heard in improvised street parties in the streets as well as in bars and clubs.
Our collaboration as productframes.org is the result of a dialogue through three years, it is also the result of technology. To stay in contact between Norway and Cuba has sometimes been a challenge, to record, store and transport some of our material have met many difficulties. Our artistic method could be described as collecting and moving information and material from one context to another. Cuban daily life and the situation of immigrants in Europe have been obvious fields of interest to us. We often expand our partnership collaboration to work with other people in different ways. For this edition of Bar Candela, we will especially like to mention the help and collaboration of Roberta Butti in Italy, El Mago in Athens, Max Delgado and Kelvis Ochoa in Madrid.
“Bar Candela y los dos lados” (Bar Candela and the two sides)
is inspired by Cuban bars and popular culture as well as the difficult political and economical situation on the island. The word “candela” means candle or light, but is also used as an exclamation to enforce whatever situation you are talking about, good or bad. CANDELA!
Our main inspiration for Bar Candela is Bar Silvia in Cayo Hueso, Havana. It is shaped like a triangle, and opens to the streets on two sides. The regular clients are slightly marked by ”la lucha” –the fight to keep up existence. Victor the barman serves cheap rum and provides the necessary framework of this social institution.
We will enter Café Sting, a bar and café that has an important social and cultural identity in a local community in Norway and bring in some of the Cuban experience. This is also a platform to investigate some other phenomena connected to Cuba.
Numerous Cubans have left their island since the revolution in 1959. It is difficult to find reliable statistics, but the presence of Cubans throughout the world is evident, as well as the stories of absent relatives and split families you can hear on the island.” Bar Candela y los dos lados” investigates and presents some of this division between the island and the outside: from the conflict between national Cuban television and Miami based exile media to the live Internet conference of two musicians living respectively in Madrid and Athens. They were childhood friends, but now have not met for 15 years.
The bar in Cuba is -as elsewhere- an important arena of communication and exchange of news and information. Rumors, jokes and slander comments on the often quite tense situation of managing daily life and an uncertain future.
Since Internet is not generally available to the pubic and the other media channels like the government controls newspapers, radio and television, the bar might be the only “communication tool” available to many customers. Erratic infrastructure is a general problem. Electricity blackouts are common. Tools for communication such as computers and mobile phones are hard to come by.
The bar is of course also a place for music, dance and fun. Cuban popular music has been exported globally and is a vital part of tourism. Music is a way of expression that is central to Cubans and can be heard in improvised street parties in the streets as well as in bars and clubs.
Our collaboration as productframes.org is the result of a dialogue through three years, it is also the result of technology. To stay in contact between Norway and Cuba has sometimes been a challenge, to record, store and transport some of our material have met many difficulties. Our artistic method could be described as collecting and moving information and material from one context to another. Cuban daily life and the situation of immigrants in Europe have been obvious fields of interest to us. We often expand our partnership collaboration to work with other people in different ways. For this edition of Bar Candela, we will especially like to mention the help and collaboration of Roberta Butti in Italy, El Mago in Athens, Max Delgado and Kelvis Ochoa in Madrid.