Hamlet Lavastida, Idealist Prize for Contemporary Art 2022

"República penitenciaria" is the artist's award-winning project, which can be visited at the idealista stand at SIMA (Madrid Real Estate Exhibition) from 26 to 29 May. 

Hamlet Lavastida (Havana, Cuba, 1983) is an influential Cuban artist persecuted by the Castro regime. He was banished from the island in 2021 for his struggle for civil rights and democratisation of the regime.

Lavastida is the winner of the fourth edition of the Idealist Contemporary Art Prize 2022 with his project "Penitentiary Republic"which offers a reflection that focuses on certain notions of ideological language within the Cuban context. Issues such as cultural policy, design, public sphere, archaeology and historiography are addressed through different media such as video, collages, performances, public interventions and installations.

The exhibition, curated by Elisa Hernando and coordinated by Arte Global, consists of 21 illustrations of a selection of architectural structures used by the penitentiary system administered by the Ministry of the Interior MININT to confine the prison population in Cuba, which include not only common crimes but are the penitentiary centres where the Cuban regime has imprisoned political prisoners, artists, intellectuals and cultural personalities critical of the regime over the last six decades. Lavastida unknowingly developed this project and was eventually imprisoned in 2021 in one of these centres, in retaliation for his public exposure as an artist calling for the opening of rights and freedoms in Cuba. 

The idealista Contemporary Art Award is an initiative of the leading real estate marketplace in Spain, Italy and Portugal with which the company wants to recognise the talent and vision of young creators and seeks to encourage and support contemporary artistic production.