This week is featured by our visit to the National Museum of Bella Art. There was a guide who graduated from art major at The University of Havana gave us a wonderful introduction to the history of Cuban art since the early 20th century. The original architecture was private asset, which was taken over by Cuban government after the revolution. The building was closed until it was rebuilt as museum of national art and opened to public in 2001. The exhibition also reflects how Cuban society changes in the 21st century. The country is now more open to modernist artists such as Wifredo Lam and Mariano Rodriguez. More importantly, art works that reflect the violence of revolution, such as suppressing homosexual topics, were shown to the public as well. This echos to the more liberal environment that tolerate homosexual love in Cuba since the 21st century.
Activities on the weekends are busy as usual. On Friday night we went to a concert of Cuban music at a bar called 1830. 1830 is a must-go place that is situated at the end of Marecon. There are concerts every night and people dance together. This is a fantastic place to practice your salsa! On Saturday we had a cooking class in a restaurant called Dulce Havana. The chef in the restaurant taught us how to cook traditional Cuban food. I find it has striking similarities with food in the northern part of China, which also have corns cooked with pork and peppers or other vegetables. The cooking process is very interesting, the chef taught us each step and gave us opportunities to try.
On Sunday we visited a community called Alamar, which was a working class community built after the Cuban Revolution. There was a group of musicians and artists called Groupo Ecologista. Despite their fame, they commit to this community and volunteer to teach children music and art. More importantly, they also try to provide a clean and healthy environment for children to play by turning plastic trash to artistic works. This is very meaningful if you have seen the trash on the street and children playing around trash cans. I hope that this kind of social service should be more frequent rather than a short visit. It would be better if we can visit every weekend to learn more about the community and children.
