Artist Kevin Laguna was imprisoned in November 2023, for attempting to paint a mural honoring Sheyniss Palacios, the newly crowned Miss Universe, in the northern Nicaraguan city of Esteli. They robbed him of his freedom for over nine months, and now they’ve stolen his nationality. But they can’t touch his talent.
They forbade him to paint on the street, but he managed to draw in jail. Now released and banished to Guatemala, he says: “they’ll have to kill him,” because “he won’t stop painting.”
In an interview with Confidencial, muralist Kevin Laguna, known as “Vink” in the artistic world, talks of his arrest and his time in jail, up to the moment he was banished to Guatemala. Laguna was released together with a group of 134 other Nicaraguan political prisoners on September 5, 2024.
“Vink was arbitrarily detained, together with his colleague Oscar Parrilla, both of them arrested for joining the celebration of Miss Nicaragua’s crowning, yet another of the topics now forbidden by the regime of Daniel Ortega.
The artist expressed his “pain and anguish” in secret sketches he made on scraps of paper in Nicaragua’s El Modelo prison. There were “so many drawings” that he could hold an art exhibit in exile, he states. He’d like to do that, because he has all these drawing with him. During this interview, he shows some of the originals.
Art is Kevin Laguna’s “life,” and during his time in prison, it was also “his solace.” Sketches of guards and cells and the emotions of the crazy, desperate, and sorrowful nights. He also made soap sculptures from the soap issued by the Prison System, and even taught art classes to his cellmates.
In this interview, the artist from Esteli also talks about his bogus charge of “conspiring against the government,” the forced removal of his dreadlocks as part of the cruel treatment he received, his love of art and his commitment to freedom of expression.
What motivated you to paint that mural (of Sheyniss Palacios)?
Using muralism, I’ve always liked covering events that happen in the country, be they political or environmental. This case seemed important to me, since it was the first time a Nicaraguan was given the Miss Universe title. I did it out of my own conviction, as my own hobby.
What happened when they arrested you?
We went to paint, and while we were doing it, they came to get me. They took me to a certain point and told me to erase the mural, that I couldn’t paint it. I felt powerless. Since when could they tell us what to paint or not to paint? Art is free expression, and we weren’t harming anything or anyone.
So at that moment, when they said ”You can’t paint that,” you went home?
I went home, but I didn’t stay silent. They wanted me to be quiet about it, but I posted (on social media) that they hadn’t let me [paint the mural]. That was my big mistake, saying that, and then they came to get me at my house. At eight that night, they were pulling me out of my house.
What did they tell you when they detained you? Did they tell you the reasons for your arrest?
They really deceived me. They told me to go with them to sign a paper. They fooled me. Then police operations in Esteli put me in with my “brother” [fellow muralist Oscar], locked us up, and eventually took us away, without even the right to call home.
They took you to Managua?
We left Esteli around 10:30 pm and arrived in Managua’s District Three police station around 12.
Once there, did they tell you the reason for your arrest?
No. They took us out of the vehicle and the panorama changed totally. They began to treat us like criminals, they made us strip, put on blue uniforms. And from there, they began to interrogate us: Who pays us? Who’s sponsoring us? Was it the Yanquis? and such stupidities.
They didn’t let us sleep that night. They took us out a bunch of times for questioning, commenting about us like we were hippies because of our hair, my beard, asking if we used drugs. I told them, “You can check my organism, and see if you find anything.”
[They said] that I was being paid, that I was going around painting in April [2018]. That part’s true, I did street paintings in April, and I never erased my work. All my paintings, all the murals I painted in April, they can see them, they’re still there. That’s what they presented me with at my trial.
But they never accused you or arrested you for painting that April, they captured you for painting a mural of Sheyniss Palacios.
[A policeman] told me: “Anyone besides you could have painted the mural of Sheyniss. But because she was messing around on the 18th [April 18, 2018, when mass protests broke out in Nicaragua] and you were messing around on the 18th, so they’re sponsoring you,” he said.
What did you tell them when they accused you of that during the interrogations?
That I used my own money. And they said: “Who would spend their own money to go paint something?” They asked me for the receipts from my account. They looked at how much I made from my other works, and they told me: “they’re paying you.”
I told them I’ve always done art, and so I always have materials. I always have everything I need at home and I paint whenever I want to.
What were you officially charged with and found guilty of?
Of conspiring against the government through our art, of altering the public order and of being traitors. The crime of undermining [the nation] and a bunch of stupidities. A total circus.
Is painting a crime? Is art a crime?
No way. It’s all incredible. I come from the city of murals, where all the old muralists who taught me are. And it’s the first time someone’s been sent to prison [for this].
What does art mean to you?
It’s my life. It’s been my solace, my therapy, during the worst moments of my life. I’m not going to stop painting. They can cut off my hair, everything, but they’re not going to take away my gift.
What happened with your dreadlocks?
They chopped them off. They surrounded me in the La Modelo birdhouse. “Torsh” [Oscar Parrilla] was there, and they cut them off in front of him, laughing. They spent hours, a long time, watching, as if it was a movie they were seeing.
My hair dropped to the ground. They cut off my hair without telling me why I’d been detained. (sighs). I’ve always said that if God exists, let Him pardon them, but I’m never going to forgive them.
What did those dreadlocks signify to you?
They were part of me. But, in the end, the hair will grow back again. They wanted to demoralize me, and they succeeded for a while. But no. They ended up giving me more motivation, more strength, they hardened me more. I’m not afraid of them anymore.
Tell me about you time in jail, how they treated you.
It was mainly psychological torture. A circus mounted by the guards, things like hitting the walls with their shoes or their tonfas when you’re sleeping. Treating you like a dog sometimes. Not all of them. Some were aware of the show we were involved in. There were some who knew we were there unjustly.
They saw us as terrorists. I’ll never forget when they took us from the District Three [police station] to La Modelo. They transported us in a minivan with one pickup truck in front and one behind, and warning everyone off the road, as if they were transporting a serial killer.
Inside, it was a matter of keeping us stripped of our dignity, keeping us with low morale. You asked me what art is – art has been my comfort. There inside, I managed to sculp, draw. I have a whole pile of things I did in there.
What did you draw in there?
I portrayed everything inside. I have enough sketches to put in an exhibition.
Do you have them in your own hands?
Yes. (He took his drawings when he was released.)
You drew pictures of your life in prison?
Yes. The anguish, the grief, all of that.
So you never stopped painting or making art in prison?
They’d have to kill me. I’ll never stop drawing.
What did you do day by day to endure that difficult burden? Were you kept isolated?
I was one of those who suffered the least, compared with the prisoners who were in Gallery 300 or those who were being kept in other sections all by themselves. Thank God, I was with other people, but it was still unjust.
Inside, we managed to make sculptures, we crushed up the soap to make them. No one knew how to sculpt, and the guys told me they wanted to learn. We all learned to sculpt with soap.
I have photos of all the sculptures. They learned from me and I learned from them.
We always looked for a way to be entertained, to get exercise every day. We played soccer, with a ball made from socks, but secretly, because as soon as they heard us enjoying ourselves, there they were.
Having fun was a sin?
Yes, it was a sin.
You sculpted from soap – using what else?
We ground it up and added water, then sculpted birds, animals, anything. And they began to be like therapy for everyone. People who maybe had never drawn, began to make sculptures and they were super rad. They taught me a lot too.
What did that time in prison leave you with?
It left me with a great deal of learning. A Nicaraguan singer-songwriter remarked that, right now, art in Nicaragua is sterile. Before I ended up in jail, my art was sterile too. It was detached. So my time in jail has taught me that my art shouldn’t go back to being detached.
What are you committed to?
The truth.
How did you feel when you stepped into that airplane and realized you were out of prison?
Before getting on the plane, I turned around to the hills of Nicaragua for the last time and “wailed like a sissy.” I’m a big crybaby, and I’ve always vented my emotions by crying and crying.
We were free, but it’s like a bittersweet feeling. You’re far from your family, in another country. But okay, I’m going to make art here or anywhere on the planet, since my own land didn’t see me as a prophet.
But you’re going to go back.
(After a pause). Yes, we’re going to return.
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
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