Cuban artist Susana Pilar (1984, Havana) focuses on social and historical issues of gender and race by taking her own personal experiences and family history and relating them to contemporary concerns such as migration and violence against women. Her own body often takes a central place in her practice. For the exhibition Body Present, Pilar creates a new performance that links Belgian colonial history to her own childhood, the particular demographics of her homeland, and her Afro- Cuban descent from slaves from Sierra Leone and Congo. The piece is presented alongside a series of photographs, videos and drawings. All of these works are based in performance and present the assertive, black female body.