SACO9 Now or never

TURNING PAGES | Fernando Sicco The curatorial focus of SACO9 Now or Never sought to highlight the idea of present time as an eternal continuum, the only one that exists. Recent events have made it so that this main idea, as well as its philosophical underpinnings, should become stained in politics, and echo with the overriding need of making decisions.

The changes that were brought about on a global level in 2020 are enormous, and, surely, it is a year that will be reconstructed in future presents to make an après coup, a posteriori reading that will help to put the experience and its effects into perspective. Undoubtedly, some of the changes we are presently facing are linked to the need to pay better attention to the day-to-day, to reformulate our routines, becoming more aware of global processes, and above all, guaranteeing everyone the fundamental rights of access to healthcare, education, information and culture.

SACO has been addressing these challenges in the midst of the radical, extreme weather that characterizes the north of Chile, opening up spaces so that art, along with other critical discourses from science to philosophy, might bring us closer to a more equitable society, one that would necessarily be more cultured, in a wider and more diverse sense of the word, not merely marked by the difference between high culture and the prevailing culture of consumerism.

Recently, Chilean people drew the world’s attention due to a nationwide popular uprising, which eventually gave way to a plebiscite and a constitutional assembly.

This was a major achievement in and of itself, though the country still faces the risks inherent in a negotiated political settlement. Now or never: this social achievement is perhaps a collective artwork. Some (or maybe a lot) of that transformative energy, which implies a restitution of truly democratic values, is also characteristic of artistic freedom. It happens when we ask ourselves different questions: Is the pandemic pulling us apart? Is it the policies put in place to deal with the pandemic, or the fear that is separating us? Or on the other hand, is the pandemic bringing us closer together as we reimagine the possibilities for being in touch, in spite of the distance? Maybe it is easier to come together in the face of a “common enemy”, as this poor virus is so often called, a virus that is simply floating around without any intention of becoming our rival at all.

It is time to realize that if there is an enemy, it is nothing more than the social, political and economic order, with its inherent inequalities. There is a risk that now or never could be read in this new reality as “every man for himself, or die trying.”

In some ways, it is just like it has always been in a hyper-competitive capitalist society, only now, one that has been hacked by a natural agent, which would seem to have emerged as an uncontrollable force, connoted by an abounding mood of 20