Coco Fusco

Coco Fusco presents The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia as a special curated project at Untitled art fair, Miami Beach, FL

The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia is a single-channel video. Inspired by the organized public protests in the Middle East beginning in 2011, Fusco took note of the communal spaces around the world being utilized and, in contrast, those left empty. The empty Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba becomes the protagonist in Fusco’s meditation on public space, revolutionary promise, and memory. Intermittent close-range views bring the Plaza’s architecture into focus; long takes documenting Fusco’s passage through the vacant square are punctuated by vintage archival footage depicting scenes from Post-Revolutionary Cuba. Throughout the duration of the video, a Spanish narration, written by acclaimed Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez, describes what appears—and does not appear—in view.