9 PAPER BAGS is a project created for Havana Bienial 2018. Nine local citizens – artists, thinkers, economists, journalists, environmentalist – were asked to write a speech about the paper bag. The simple paper bag – made form brown Kraft paper – can be a curious interrogator of histories, politics, economics and, conflicts of a global scale. In Cuba paper bags mean both past and the future: paper bags – or cartuchos as they were called – were an important object of daily live but exchanged with plastic bags after the Soviet Union collapsed.
An edition of 9 paper bags with excerpts of each of the speeches were printed on 100.000 bags. The bags were distributed over the period of the biennial to vegetable markets and small grocery stores around Havana to be given out to people. Thus the artwork was slowly distributed to many households of the city. The full length speeches could be listened at the Havana biennale exhibition.