A language that crosses oceans, a bridge between Italy and Cuba

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, as is its distinctly international tradition, has woven a dense network of relationships, collabora-tions, mobility projects with Cuba and Cuban universities. From these exchanges, which have intensified in the last two years, the Venetian University has been enriched in terms of knowledge, disciplinary perspectives, interpretations and opportuni-ties. An emblematic example of these enrichments is the collaboration between Francesco Della Puppa, the La Habana branch of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and the Universidad de Les Artes de La Habana (ISA), aimed at the implementation of the project "Avenida Italia - Integrated urban redevelopment for local valorisation and support for innovative, biological, sustainable, community, creative and circular economies", intended for the accompaniment and to the creation of cultural and social activities, which primarily involve young people and women, in a portion of the Municipality of Centro Habana, adjacent to the so-called Avenida Italia.
Within this project, Francesco Della Puppa collaborated with young people from the Municipality, local artists, ISA students and AICS to create a creative writing and “drawn literature” workshop. The academy and the world of official culture in Cuba include children’s illustration, animation and comics within the category of “high” literature, differently from what risks happening in Italy, but consistently with tradition and legitimation that these artistic languages find in Hispanic America. Therefore, this contribution will give an account of the collaboration with AICS and ISA, of the experience of the Avenida Italia project, of the creative writing and comics workshop path with the young people of Centro Habana, not before having reconstructed and analyzed the experiences and traditions of performing and visual arts of Cuba, framing them within the broader Latin American context.