The fair ‘for parents’ is neither art nor cheap

HAVANA, Cuba.- An art fair dedicated to Father’s Day was the proposal that the Cuban Fund for Cultural Assets (FCBC) presented at the Cultural Station on Linea and 18, in El Vedado, Havana. The annual event was promoted as a space to buy gifts to give to the father figure “without making a significant financial expense.”

“Art for Dad” is an initiative that emerged in 2017 in Santiago de Cuba and was transferred to the rest of the country. In the 2024 capital edition, held from the 8th to the 15th of this month, 122 national creators participated, 58 of them representing private ventures, plus seven international stands from India, Mexico and Peru.

Among gastronomic offerings, footwear, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, costume jewelry, furniture, dolls and other crafts, attendees were able to find objects to satisfy tastes and colors, both for those looking to meet basic needs and for those who wanted to pay for a luxury.

consulted by CubaNetone of the employees of the place highlighted that the persistent rain of the last few days did not prevent the venue from receiving a large attendance, which she estimated was greater than that which attended the fair held last May on the occasion of Mother’s Day.

The discordant note was the prices of the products, so high that the perfect gift became unattainable for most visitors, he stated. “The majority were passing by and looking, but they left as they arrived: empty-handed,” commented the interviewee during the last date of the event.

Likewise, he called the fair “not very artisanal,” due to the great variety of industrial products that the stands showed. “Except the shoes, some clothes and furniture, everything else is imported,” she said.

Ana María González Prado, one of the attendees at the expo-sale, criticized the fact that there was no differential price scale between what was made by machines and what was built by hand, due to its logical contrasts in quality, and that at the same time it framed the supposed condition of a fair managed to facilitate people’s access to quality gifts without having to spend a lot of money.

“You know that everything is a lie, but deep down there is always the hope that one day it will be true, that you will find what you want at a good price. The fairs are very expensive, the same as the agricultural ones. If you don’t grab a bunch of money you can’t buy anything,” she said.

For most Cubans, a good gift consists of receiving an item that can cover an urgent material need. The most common is a pair of shoes or a specific piece of clothing. But said in good Creole and in the midst of the inflation that the country is going through, any of these items usually cost “an arm and a leg.”

Samuel Acevedo Reyes was one of those attracted by the propaganda. “He wanted to give something to the old man—his father—. He came thinking that because of the fame they were giving him they had to loosen their grip on prices, and nothing could be further from the truth. He had an idea of ​​some shoes, but the cheapest ones, the ones that have a little bit of quality, cost 5,000 pesos,” he illustrated.

The expensive reality of prices also conditioned the type of gift that Isabel Hernández Lahera had to choose for her father. At first, she says, she was thinking of buying him a pair of shoes and “one of those little bags that men use” to carry her documents and money. However, she had to change her mind and choose “an object that was more symbolic than useful.”

“When I arrived there were people queuing under the water to enter, that excited me because I believed that this had to be good for people to make that sacrifice. But when I manage to enter I am greatly disappointed, I discover that there is the same thing as everywhere and with sky-high prices,” explained the woman, who ended up buying her father a glass jug.

Requesting anonymity, the manager of one of the stands argued to CubaNet that many businesses had to pay a kind of bribe to be able to participate in the art fair, in addition to covering different operational expenses such as renting the space.

“You have to cough up thousands of pesos. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter if you have a craftsman’s license, they will leave you in the lurch. You have to pay the permit people their share. Very few pass for free, not to be absolute, and they always knock down—take away—something. Logically, even if you want to later you can’t lower prices. Not for fathers, not for mothers, not for anyone,” he stated.

OPINION ARTICLE
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