Interview with Tania Bruguera, conducted by José Muñoz, during the 7th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, held in August of 2009 in Bogotá, Colombia under the title Staging Citizenship: Cultural Rights in the Americas. In this interview, Tania Bruguera talks about her take on how her particular performance-related work makes a political intervention in the public sphere. This interview complements Bruguera's performance Untitled (Bogotá, 2009), showcased in this 10-day event, which brought together activism, scholarship, and art around the themes of legacies, memories, struggles, and frontiers of citizenship.

Biography

Tania Bruguera is a political artist who works primarily in behavior art (arte de conducta). Her work explores the role of the audience in performances and the relationship between ethics and desire. Bruguera is interested in creating political situations through her work. She has exhibited and performed at Documenta, Vienna Biennials, and museums such as the Tate Modern. In 2008 she received a Prince Claus Award (Holland). Her work has been discussed in Artforum, the New York Times, Performance Research, and Performance: Live Art Since 1960, among others. In 2002 she created the Cátedra Arte de Conducta, the first center in Havana dedicated to the study of political art.