Originally when I signed up for the event, I did not look carefully at the event blurb and thought that I would be touring around the Johnson Museum. Besides seeing different phenomenal art pieces, what else can we do in the Museum? However, the event turns out to be a very educational talk on contemporary art in Cuba and the messages behind them. Before we dive into the nitty-gritty discussion of the art, we were given a brief overview of contemporary Cuban history. Having a very limited knowledge of Cuban History, I learnt a lot new things from the talk. For example, I learnt about Operation Peter Pan. Operation Peter Pan was an American-organized program which was first developed after the Cuban Revolution occurred and turned Cuba communist. Many Cuban parents send their children to the United States in fear that the new government was planning to send minors to the Soviet Union to serve in work camps. Besides learning about the history, we were shown an artwork that expresses the sadness of the children having to leave their native country. The artwork is not just a painting. It was an art piece where there is a white-colored sketch of the cuban territory on the floor and there are white clothes on top of the sketch, which illustrates how young Cuban were forced to fly off their own country to somewhere on their own because of the revolution.

After going to the talk, I found that artworks do not only express the artists’ emotions but can also help illustrate the social problems and make the audience to learn more about the problems they are concerned. Overall, I thought it was a really good experience and I am glad that I stumbled upon this talk