A LONG AND INTENSE NOW1 | Yana Tamayo Participating in the ninth edition of SACO in 2020 was a real treat, as it provided me with the opportunity to discover other kinds of independent artistic experiences, as well as a chance to dialog and cooperate with curators and artists from South America and other parts of the world. Now or never took place in the middle of a pandemic that brought the fragility of human presence on the planet into sharp relief. The curatorial proposal for the latest edition of the festival dealt with these types of emergencies, potentialities, and asymmetrical flows. Imagine if the call were opened today, what would the submissions look like after all we have just been through? In light of the mourning, loss, struggle, and social achievements made during this age of extreme conservatism, how does the production of art conceive of, express and define its territories? In a field as sensitive as is the production of thought, how do we view our relationship with the world that appears before us here and now? With these and other questions in mind, we can dig into the important role that artistic exchanges play in peripheral spaces2. Currently, in the face of interventions that minimize the occurrence of cultural activities in society, such actions take on greater relevance due to their capacity for strengthening bonds, exchanges of thought, and the policy-making that goes into making such a field of sensible knowledge possible. And so, since we began receiving the first submissions to the open call for SACO9, we had to deal with an increase in the number of proposals submitted as well as unexpected modifications to the route, including a change in the exhibition space, from the Melbourne Clark Historic Pier to Sitio Cero, in the Port of Antofagasta; a place that, in the end, better accommodated not only the winning proposals, but also the need for greater social distancing. In different ways, the collection of selected works would seem to encompass a variety of perspectives regarding the relationship between the act of building, and impermanence. The modern condition of South America? It reminds me of that Caetano Veloso song that goes, “aqui tudo parece que ainda é construção e já é ruína”3. Consisting of only the barest essentials, a sense of transience inhabits some of the works presented in the exhibition. Three artists utilized intangible materials to construct their works: Remo Schnyder, the wind; Paula Castillo, sunlight; and Ernesto Walker, sounds and radio waves that traversed the space between the lighthouse and the port. 1
The title refers to the 2017 João Moreira Salles film, No intenso agora (In the Intense Now).
2
We refer here to the idea of the periphery as a place that is removed from large cultural and economic centers, areas with little institutional action and where independent initiatives often take the place of the actions taken by the state, which ought to do more to support the production of and access to culture.
3
Verse from the song “Fora da Ordem” by Caetano Veloso (“Everything here seems to be still under construction and already in ruins”).
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