After the Revolution They Built an Art School Over the Golf Course, Textiles, 230x115, 230x250, 230x115cm, 2017; Installed at Turf Projects for You’re Surrounded by Me, July - Sept 2017 (photo by Tim Bowditch)
In April 2017, Sigourney Weaver appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Weaver spoke about her visit to Cuba, which she’d taken to get away from the United States after the election of Donald Trump. During the interview she briefly mentioned the art school that had been built over the Havana golf course after the Cuban Revolution. Weaver is an actor known for her roles in science fiction films; a genre that - at its best - critiques the present by imagining the future.
In 1961, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara played several rounds of golf on the Havana Country Club's golf course. Prior to the Cuban Revolution, this had been a private space, only accessibly to Havana's elite'. The pair decided to repurpose the carefully manicured landscape and open a free art school. In 2017 Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. He spent over 300 days of his time in office playing golf. The sport is part of his global brand; a brand he sought to bolster throughout his campaigns and Presidency.
After the Revolution They Built an Art School Over the Golf Course recontextualises the act of building an art school over the golf course. It imagines a possible future; one that involves a shift from privatisation and profiteering towards the rejuvenation of the commons, free education and critical thinking.
Installation view: Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, Dec 2018 – Feb 2019 (photo by Andy Stagg)
With thanks to:
Eleanor Meade