Cuban Gallery

2008 - 2009

Cuba-Canada Green Bridge Project

Artist-in-Residence

Jose Armando Medina Sanabia, Professor of Art, Santiago de Cuba, Visual Artist (print media)

Armando was born in Santiago de Cuba, 1977. He graduated in 1996 from the Fine Arts Academy “José Joaquín Tejada” with the first academic file in the speciality of printmaking and drawing.  He has a Bachelor of Education of Visual Arts from the Higher Pedagogical Institute “Frank País García” in Santiago de Cuba and is a Professor of printmaking at the Fine Arts Academy “José Joaquín Tejada” in Santiago de Cuba since 1996.  Head of the Printmaking Board of the Fine Arts Academy since 2000. Member of the AHS (Association “Hermanos Saíz”), Armando has participated in 76 exhibitions in Cuba and 13 show projects in other countries. He has obtained 23 awards such as the National Mention of Printmaking in Cuba (2007), the Award for the Contribution to the Cultural Development of Santiago de Cuba city (2001), and the Guest of Honor of Santa Marta City in Colombia (1996).  His artwork is in private collections internationally and in the collections of Museo Bolivariano de Arte Contemporáneo in Santa Marta, Colombia, and in the Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota, USA.

February 2008

The CRAM Collective, Niagara Artists Cenre, and Taller Cultural "Luis Diaz Oduardo" in Santiago de Cuba have initiated the CCGB Project, a multi-year exchange of artists and interventions in both countries into the year 2010.  The projects will support the creation of new artwork and an on-going critical dialogue between regional centres and collectives.  The artists and communities stand to benefit greatly from the exchange of projects, residencies, and exhibitions in Cuba and Canada.

The environmental theme of the initial exchange provides a unifying and timely perspective to the project that presents regional artists from Cuba and Canada working together on grass-roots initiatives.  The CRAM-Cuba interventions are being sponsored and supported by Niagara Artists' Centre and Galeria Oriente, Santiago deCuba.

Taller Cultural Manifesto for the CCGB Project

CRAM acknowledges the support of Niagara Artists' Centre