When Doves Cry

Abstract

Through bold political performance acts, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera accesses an untimely variant of utopia whose surplus exceeds Cold War binaries of revolution and exile. Bruguera’s democratic action works build collective self-esteem and challenge the official utopianism of the communist state. In free-speech performances that confront the Cuban state’s censorship apparatus, Bruguera models for her fellow Cuban citizens an inimitable practice of democratic dissensus.