For several days, Casa de las Americas, one of most prestigious Cuban cultural institutions, hosted intelligent and contextualized exchanges on different realities in this region.
One of the most anticipated moments of the forum was the presentation of unpublished book Land and waters of the Caribbean Sea, by Manuel Galich, a tribute on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of this great Guatemalan intellectual.
The text, authored by Cuban historian Sergio Guerra Vilaboy, close collaborator of Galich, was written using chronicles on cultural and historical topics about the Lesser Antilles.
It was also of interest to the public the Latin American popular doll collection donated by the nonagenarian Clara Elena, daughter of the noted Cuban writer Enrique Serpa.
On that line, there was rag dolls workshop presented by Ecuadorians Marisol Cardenas and Alice Trepp, example of a long tradition that offers a liberating perspective of resistance from aesthetics.
The Colloquium also hosted a theoretical meeting dedicated to the life and work of Martinican Edouard Glissant (1928-2012), which after thinking about the poetry of the noted intellectual, gave way to the opening of the exhibition Región interior: la otra América de Glissant-Lam-Cárdenas-Matta, in the gallery The kingdom of this world.
The artistic variety of the exhibition shows the cultural richness of the region, from the mortuary and spiritual rites of the Colombian hiding places, to the festive and spiritual significance of the famous carnivals of Trinidad and Tobago or Santo Domingo.
The closing of the event was really Caribbean, a carnival that took by assault the central G street to put an end to the Colloquium, which after five days of exchanges placed the Caribbean under a magnifying glass, allowing us to appreciate it from a broad and inclusive perspective.
The party was enliven by the groups Guaracheros de Reglas and the FEU, which were mixed with stilts of Gigantería Havana in a parade that , for several hours, gave a unique nuance to the central avenue of Havana city.