Cirenaica MOREIRA (b. 1969, Havana) trained as an actress at the Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana, Cuba, from which she graduated in 1992. She began her career in visual arts in 1994, essentially as a photographer.
Her first series, Ojos que te vieron ir..., defines the first part of an expression sentimentally anchored in melancholy, pessimism and pain. Ojos que te vieron ir... (The eyes that saw you leave) alludes to the Spanish proverb which continues “...jamás te verán regresar” (shall never see you return). As vestiges of a broken or fragmentary dramatic discourse, Cirenaica uses small quotes, or stock phrases, as bit-part actor, albeit not as side support to her photographic discourse. They constitute an inseparable component of the whole. Their absence will be interpreted as long silence.
In August 1994, a small-scale outbreak of popular dissent took place in Havana, which was quickly controlled by the Cuban authorities and by the presence of its absolute leader in the streets, with thousands summoned out to follow him. Following those events, as an exceptional measure, the sea borders between the island and the United States were opened, facilitating the departure of some 37,000 Cubans who were in disagreement with the economic, social and political system that had held in the island since January 1959.
Through the female body, and its (re)presentation in images of dismay, of expectancy, sometimes of inquiry, which retain their exhilarating resolve for humour and irony, Moreira evokes, in the first person singular, a world of suffocating and implausible daily occurrences, at the heart of which sex and death are indelibly inscribed, fighting to break the silence and composure of the image and make it explode. The allusions to the daily and the domestic are reinforced through the clothing and accessories in which it is shrouded, which she herself manufactures or recycles in the way of inherited female traditions, thereby placing her artistic discourse within a vein of genre that draws on the legacy of vocational theatre. It is in the gesture, halted at a point of significant maximum tension, and draped in symbols that underline the darkest latencies, that the agonizing lack of knowledge of one’s own identity and the lurking pressure of mystery emerge.
Over time, her work has opened up to other registers, to encompass installation, video, performance and sculpture. Works of hers are an integral part of the heritage of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba); University of Virginia Art Museum (USA) and Fundación Arte Viva (Río de Janeiro). Her work has been exhibited at the National Geographic Magazine Seminar (Washington DC); ARCO (Madrid) and Metropolitan Pavilion (NY). She often works with the Couturier Gallery (Los Angeles); Alida Anderson Projects (Washington DC); Co Galería de Arte (Santiago de Chile); Gedok Gallery (Munich) and Servando Galería de Arte (Havana).
For RE-ACTION, Moreira presents Fragmentos Insalvables, a video-projection on object, 2 mins. 22 seconds long. From Marta María Pérez's dérive, she seizes upon the idea of fire and the flame on the arms. Fire not as a vital element, but as reductive agent.
Cirenaica Moreira lives and works in Havana (Cuba).
Her first series, Ojos que te vieron ir..., defines the first part of an expression sentimentally anchored in melancholy, pessimism and pain. Ojos que te vieron ir... (The eyes that saw you leave) alludes to the Spanish proverb which continues “...jamás te verán regresar” (shall never see you return). As vestiges of a broken or fragmentary dramatic discourse, Cirenaica uses small quotes, or stock phrases, as bit-part actor, albeit not as side support to her photographic discourse. They constitute an inseparable component of the whole. Their absence will be interpreted as long silence.
In August 1994, a small-scale outbreak of popular dissent took place in Havana, which was quickly controlled by the Cuban authorities and by the presence of its absolute leader in the streets, with thousands summoned out to follow him. Following those events, as an exceptional measure, the sea borders between the island and the United States were opened, facilitating the departure of some 37,000 Cubans who were in disagreement with the economic, social and political system that had held in the island since January 1959.
Through the female body, and its (re)presentation in images of dismay, of expectancy, sometimes of inquiry, which retain their exhilarating resolve for humour and irony, Moreira evokes, in the first person singular, a world of suffocating and implausible daily occurrences, at the heart of which sex and death are indelibly inscribed, fighting to break the silence and composure of the image and make it explode. The allusions to the daily and the domestic are reinforced through the clothing and accessories in which it is shrouded, which she herself manufactures or recycles in the way of inherited female traditions, thereby placing her artistic discourse within a vein of genre that draws on the legacy of vocational theatre. It is in the gesture, halted at a point of significant maximum tension, and draped in symbols that underline the darkest latencies, that the agonizing lack of knowledge of one’s own identity and the lurking pressure of mystery emerge.
Over time, her work has opened up to other registers, to encompass installation, video, performance and sculpture. Works of hers are an integral part of the heritage of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Cuba); University of Virginia Art Museum (USA) and Fundación Arte Viva (Río de Janeiro). Her work has been exhibited at the National Geographic Magazine Seminar (Washington DC); ARCO (Madrid) and Metropolitan Pavilion (NY). She often works with the Couturier Gallery (Los Angeles); Alida Anderson Projects (Washington DC); Co Galería de Arte (Santiago de Chile); Gedok Gallery (Munich) and Servando Galería de Arte (Havana).
For RE-ACTION, Moreira presents Fragmentos Insalvables, a video-projection on object, 2 mins. 22 seconds long. From Marta María Pérez's dérive, she seizes upon the idea of fire and the flame on the arms. Fire not as a vital element, but as reductive agent.
Cirenaica Moreira lives and works in Havana (Cuba).