Elena Lahr-Vivaz
This article analyzes Cuban poet Ramón Hondal's Prótesis, published in 2019, alongside the eponymous musical performance of the work that formed part of artist Luis López-Chávez's 2019 show El acto total. As with the first two books in his trilogy (Diálogos and Scratch, published in 2014 and 2019, respectively), in Prótesis Hondal intimates the importance of imagining new (third)spaces of identity. Collaborating on the Prótesis performance with artist López-Chávez, as well as sound engineer Esteban Bruzón, composer Santiago Barbosa, and the musical ensemble Vocal Luna, Hondal also emphasizes the importance of reading beyond books. With print increasingly devalued in our digital, consumerist world, Hondal suggests that artistic collaborations are critical in creating poetic prostheses to remember the past and create new, if evanescent, imaginaries.