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My interest in art was born, above all, from a need for communication. Since I was a child, I was a very shy person, and it was often difficult for me to express emotions or thoughts directly. Art appeared as a space where I could still communicate, using images, actions, sounds, and experiences instead of words. It was a way to find my own voice and to create connections with others from a more intuitive and sensitive place.

I also grew up in an environment heavily influenced by art. My father was a theatre director and my mother an architect, and both had an especially important impact on my training and sensitivity. From the theatre I inherited an interest in presence, the body, the scene, and the emotional dimension of experience. From architecture came my attention to space, structure, and the way in which places hold memory and history. These influences were fundamental to understanding art not only as an object, but as a living and transformative experience.

From my first works I understood artistic practice as a form of presence and connection, a space where I could explore emotions, social tensions and internal states that are difficult to express in words. In general, what inspires me is the possibility of creating an experience where art functions as a bridge between the personal and the collective, between memory, the body and the environment.

 

Bio

Mabel Poblet (b. 1986, Cienfuegos, Cuba) lives and works between Cuba and Madrid. Her multimedia practice explores themes of identity, mobility, and belonging. Poblet graduated from the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in 2007 and later earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of the Arts (ISA), in 2012. In 2008, she participated in the workshops of the Cátedra Arte de Conducta, organized and directed by Tania Bruguera.

She has presented solo exhibitions including No (Body) Is an Island at the Brownstone Foundation, Paris (2024), and What Does All the Blue in the Sea Have That the Sky Doesn’t? at Pan American Art Projects, Florida (2024). At an international level, Poblet has participated in several editions of the Havana Biennial and was invited to represent Cuba in the Cuban Art Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Her work has also been included in major group exhibitions such as Complicated Beauty: Contemporary Cuban Art, Tampa Museum of Art (2016), and Under the Spell of the Palm Tree, at the Harn Museum of Art, 2023, among others.