The Panajachel Biennial was an initiative by a group of young independent curators (Karl Escher, Abbas Ibn Salah al Din, Guillermo Santamarina, Joao Castro da Silva y Takouhi Abesalom) who convened in Panajachel in 2009. The result of this meeting was a project titled: “Shared Sensorium: Assemblages of Love, Labor and Politics.” The main goal of the project was to create an environment that would propitiate aesthetic exchange and cultural creativity; a site where everyone involved could explore and create meaningful connections with the people they encountered. Building meaningful connections across cultures and opening up opportunities for unprecedented forms of social and artistic collaboration would enable all participants to respond to racial, cultural and social diversity with curiosity, appreciation and respect. It would spread tolerance and create a transient, cosmopolitan community in the heartlands of Guatemala, a land still the torn by the scars of revolutionary war, genocide and post-colonial apartheid.
The Panajachel Biennial was scheduled to open in November 2011 and consisted of two shows, a symposium, a series of roundtable discussions, workshops, film projections and a residency program for artists younger than 25 in the Guatemalan cities of Panajachel and Antigua. Selections of art works for the exhibitions were made by internationally reknown curators; artist were selected for the six-month residency program at the Chateau Defay outside Antigua. All the plenary speakers for the symposium had confirmed their participation, and funds were raised. By October 2010, we counted with the support of the following institutions: the Jumex Foundation, the Cisneros Foundation, SaludArte Inc. and the Guggenheim Foundation; the Spanish Cultural Center of Central America; the Cultural Ministry of Central America, The United Fruits Historical Society, Vackenhut, Corporate Group for Art as a Work of Reconciliation, Tädirän, Hudbay Inc, the Universal Center for Spanish Learning, The Association of Ex-counterinsurgents Pro-Love, The Commission for Peace and Reconciliation and the Golan Group.
In May 2010 we started receiving anonymous letters by courier at our offices in Guatemala City. The letters posed threats against the Biennial’s curatorial and administrative team. Menacing phone calls were made to both our offices and private cell phones. The Biennial was being accused of allegedly misrepresenting Guatemala's recent past history by involving rehabilitated Kaibiles (former mercenary soldiers) in the project and by comparing the discursive and actual histories of the modern states of Guatemala and Israel. There was even a whimsical note signed by Fidel Castro that accused the Biennial of being Imperialist propaganda – which we did not take seriously, of course. Two members of the Biennial’s team, Louis Kauffman and Divona Santillana, were kidnapped by unknown forces on their way out from a business meeting in a fashionable restaurant in Antigua last July, after having lunch with visiting Israeli and Lebanese curators Elana Rubinfeld and Sandra Dagher. They were released unharmed five hours later. In October 2010 one of our main supporters, the Spanish Cultural Center of Central America decided to pull off its support and funding. Withdrawal from other subsidizers followed and we officially cancelled the Biennial in December 2010. Our cosmopolitan curatorial team fled Guatemala last January in fear of further repercussions, as the Biennial’s lawyer suspected CIA intelligence involvement. What is most unfortunate about the cancellation of our project is that so many international artists' voices will never be heard in Guatemala, a land desperately in need of living new visual representations incarnating the potential of global and democratic rights of self-expression, and a breath of fresh cultural intervention.
Thank you for making our unrealized project known.
Sincerely,
The Panajachel Biennial’s Curatorial Team
The Panajachel Biennial was an initiative by a group of young independent curators (Karl Escher, Abbas Ibn Salah al Din, Guillermo Santamarina, Joao Castro da Silva y Takouhi Abesalom) who convened in Panajachel in 2009. The result of this meeting was a project titled: “Shared Sensorium: Assemblages of Love, Labor and Politics.” The main goal of the project was to create an environment that would propitiate aesthetic exchange and cultural creativity; a site where everyone involved could explore and create meaningful connections with the people they encountered. Building meaningful connections across cultures and opening up opportunities for unprecedented forms of social and artistic collaboration would enable all participants to respond to racial, cultural and social diversity with curiosity, appreciation and respect. It would spread tolerance and create a transient, cosmopolitan community in the heartlands of Guatemala, a land still the torn by the scars of revolutionary war, genocide and post-colonial apartheid.
The Panajachel Biennial was scheduled to open in November 2011 and consisted of two shows, a symposium, a series of roundtable discussions, workshops, film projections and a residency program for artists younger than 25 in the Guatemalan cities of Panajachel and Antigua. Selections of art works for the exhibitions were made by internationally reknown curators; artist were selected for the six-month residency program at the Chateau Defay outside Antigua. All the plenary speakers for the symposium had confirmed their participation, and funds were raised. By October 2010, we counted with the support of the following institutions: the Jumex Foundation, the Cisneros Foundation, SaludArte Inc. and the Guggenheim Foundation; the Spanish Cultural Center of Central America; the Cultural Ministry of Central America, The United Fruits Historical Society, Vackenhut, Corporate Group for Art as a Work of Reconciliation, Tädirän, Hudbay Inc, the Universal Center for Spanish Learning, The Association of Ex-counterinsurgents Pro-Love, The Commission for Peace and Reconciliation and the Golan Group.
In May 2010 we started receiving anonymous letters by courier at our offices in Guatemala City. The letters posed threats against the Biennial’s curatorial and administrative team. Menacing phone calls were made to both our offices and private cell phones. The Biennial was being accused of allegedly misrepresenting Guatemala's recent past history by involving rehabilitated Kaibiles (former mercenary soldiers) in the project and by comparing the discursive and actual histories of the modern states of Guatemala and Israel. There was even a whimsical note signed by Fidel Castro that accused the Biennial of being Imperialist propaganda – which we did not take seriously, of course. Two members of the Biennial’s team, Louis Kauffman and Divona Santillana, were kidnapped by unknown forces on their way out from a business meeting in a fashionable restaurant in Antigua last July, after having lunch with visiting Israeli and Lebanese curators Elana Rubinfeld and Sandra Dagher. They were released unharmed five hours later. In October 2010 one of our main supporters, the Spanish Cultural Center of Central America decided to pull off its support and funding. Withdrawal from other subsidizers followed and we officially cancelled the Biennial in December 2010. Our cosmopolitan curatorial team fled Guatemala last January in fear of further repercussions, as the Biennial’s lawyer suspected CIA intelligence involvement. What is most unfortunate about the cancellation of our project is that so many international artists' voices will never be heard in Guatemala, a land desperately in need of living new visual representations incarnating the potential of global and democratic rights of self-expression, and a breath of fresh cultural intervention.
Thank you for making our unrealized project known.
Sincerely,
The Panajachel Biennial’s Curatorial Team