Aesthetics of resistance: hashtags and Cuban artivism

Abstract

Growing tensions between the independent art scene and cultural institutions in Cuba, intensified by censorship and widespread access to the Internet, have given rise to new forms of digital resistance. This paper analyzes Cuban artivism through the hashtags #00BienalDeLaHabana (2017-2018) and #NoALaBienalDeLaHabana (2021-2022), with the aim of examining how these campaigns shape critical discourses and produce new forms of aesthetic and political expression. The analysis of 300 Instagram posts associated with both hashtags allowed us to observe how digital artivism has redefined the modes of circulation of countercultural art and reorganized the Cuban cultural field. As Lev Manovich argues, technologies and platforms not only change the tools of creation, but also the epistemological structures from which we think and relate to image, authorship, and visual culture. Using a historical-critical approach combined with digital methods, the research traces a cartography of dissent, identifies visual patterns, and maps transnational networks. This paper proposes a situated reading of Cuban digital artivism as a practice of resistance that reactivates the languages of contemporary art and activism. Following Jacques Rancière, it argues that hashtags not only communicate, but also suspend ordinary sensory experience by challenging the hierarchies between seeing, saying, and acting. Despite the ephemeral nature of hashtags, they are powerful tools for questioning ossified institutional structures and opening up interstitial spaces in authoritarian contexts.