Art, Desert, and Participative People | Enrique Winter

ART, DESERT, AND PARTICIPATIVE PEOPLE

Enrique Winter

For a decade now, Poland artist Dagmara Wyskiel and Chilean producer Christian Núñez have been organizing art weeks, festivals, and since 2021 a biennial of contemporary art in Antofagasta. They have been planted in the sea and also in the driest desert in the world. Under a sun with a shadow that sinks in the mining are the mummies from our ancestors and tons of discarded clothing, where everything remains intact. One year after the other, SACO has harvested a loyal public for artistic practices that would possibly not find space in different zones of the country. How have they achieved an audience of 30 thousand people where there is not a museum or an art school?

The open calls are focused on the territory. The artists are not invited –with a few exceptions, like the recent conference of the amazing Óscar Muñoz. They are chosen among hundreds of proposals by a jury from different countries and artistic backgrounds. In this way, the commonplaces of fruitless monologues from within disciplines speaking to themselves are avoided. By a combination of factors, the openness to the general public is possible. Once the artworks are mounted, it becomes evident that the museum is the open space for SACO. From the pier they now administrate to the ruins of a silver foundry, this unique experience spreads out in Antofagasta. In addition to these spaces, the few available cultural centers and galleries open their doors for international artworks and a healthy local scene. The route continues into the desert to Quillagua and San Pedro de Atacama, where the artworks are introduced to the local people by enthusiastic mediators trained by the organization itself. In Antofagasta, there is no way to escape from the artistic reflection since creative workshops are also offered at schools.

How have they achieved an audience of 30 thousand people where there is not a museum or an art school?

On this occasion, the subject was the flood. In a region with practically no rains, the territory overflows when they fall, causing tragedies like the one that happened three decades ago. The seven winning proposals for the exhibition at the Melbourne Clark Pier approached this event, building an extended home from divergent perspectives. This year the usual stroll at the dock had a cardboard door with a big lock challenging our security sense. Once the work by Mexican Miguel Sifuentes was opened, we got inside a hut made of PVC pipes and whistles. Martina Mella from Concepción reflected on the precarity of Chilean housing solutions. In the backyard of her piece, Brazilian artist Carolina Cherubini hanged the freshly washed sheets used the day after the flood. She evoked a sailing ship about to weigh anchor while showing how the women’s work is made invisible. One step after, the colors in Nigerian artist Rita Doris’s work enabled another textile craft to set sail. At this point, the public –already a piece more in this reflective play– was surprised by the perspective shift offered through the platform created by Marina Liesegang from Brazil; and the ceramic domino game by Costa Rican Aimée Joaristi leading them to the sea. Those more perceptive could sit on the inclusive bench with an unnoticed speaker. Then, we felt “when the earth speaks” along with Julio César Palacio from Spain.

In the desert where everything is preserved, these pieces –and those from twenty-one artists that attended other residencies– seemed an ephemeral gift. But they put tension on the territory, its inhabitants and its history, transforming their own shapes and the ones of those who interacted with them. Conceived from and for social change, SACO returns its gaze to a participative people. Maybe these memories will accompany them forever, like the sea and the desert.