A Screening Program Exploring Artist Expeditions as Speculative Imaginaries Arrives in Central and Southern Chile
The short film cycle Wilderness of a stateless mind comes to Sala K – Universidad Mayor (Marín 321, Santiago) on Wednesday, May 6 at 7:00 p.m. — by registration — and to the Museo de Historia Natural Río Seco (Juan Williams 012812, Punta Arenas) on May 8 and 9, with an opening and subsequent screenings on Fridays and Saturdays throughout May. The program proposes new ways of engaging with landscape through images, words, and flavors. At Sala K, philosopher and essayist Paz López and graphic designer and naturalist Miquel Moya will participate with a wild foods experience; in Punta Arenas, poet Óscar Barrientos and guests to be confirmed.
Wilderness of a stateless mind
The video cycle Wilderness of a stateless mind, organized by Fundación Mar Adentro (FMA) and the international contemporary art platform Kadist, continues its tour of Chile with screenings in the center and south of the country, following its international premiere at Fogo Island Arts Cinema, Canada, in 2025.
The program brings together five video art short films that explore artistic expeditions as speculative imaginaries, proposing a shift in the traditional notion of exploration: no longer solely as physical movement toward remote territories, but as an inward journey into how we perceive and engage with the natural world. From the Amazon to the Andean Altiplano, through the Arctic, a Colombian rainforest, the Salar de Uyuni, and speculative landscapes, the works trace a cross-border itinerary connecting North and South America through multiple ecological, cultural, and temporal layers.
A Turn Inward
Still from “Un hombre que camina,” by Enrique Ramírez
Against a backdrop of global ecological crises, the cycle invites a rethinking of the relationship between humanity and nature from critical perspectives that cut across art, science fiction, and literature. The works engage with territories marked by historical, extractive, and ecological tensions, conjuring forms of attention that move away from the idea of “pristine nature” toward inhabited, hybrid landscapes in constant transformation.
On this, Maya Errázuriz, director of art and publications at Fundación Mar Adentro and co-curator of the program, underscores the need to revisit contemporary approaches to landscape: “These audiovisual works are situated in a present where we inhabit exploited territories or territories subject to extractivism; landscape explorations therefore need to be subverted from within, through practices that involve being in the landscape, or an inward journey.”
Errázuriz adds that the notion of the “remote” is itself a cultural construction that shapes our perception of territory: “Remote places carry a cultural weight associated with being seen as the ends of the earth. These associations lead us to think of such spaces as borders or abysses. A place like Río Seco, in Punta Arenas, can be seen as isolated, but also as a home. It matters to bring to light the fact that every place is inhabited by its own culture.”
Touring Chile: Center to South
Still from “Dropspike” by Leticia Ramos
The cycle’s 2026 tour unfolds in different stages across Chile:
Sala K – Universidad Mayor, Santiago – Wednesday, May 6, 7:00 p.m.: Register HERE.
Museo de Historia Natural Río Seco, Punta Arenas. Opening: Fri. May 8, 6:30 p.m. | Sat. May 9, 4:00 p.m. Upcoming screenings: Fri. May 15, 22 & 29: video art cycle 3:30 p.m. + guided tour 4:00 p.m. | Sat. May 16, 23 & 30: video art cycle 11:00 a.m. + guided tour 12:00 p.m.
Each event incorporates mediation, conversation, and activation formats, extending the viewing experience into the performative and the collective.
In Santiago, the Sala K – U. Mayor program includes commentary by philosopher Paz López and a tasting experience led by Miquel Moya, graphic designer and naturalist, deepening the reflection on knowing a place through the food knowledge of central Chile.
In Punta Arenas, the program will engage with the context of the Museo de Historia Natural Río Seco, housed in a former cold-storage facility converted into an ecological and cultural archive of the far south.
About the short films:
- AEQUADOR (Laura Huertas Millán) travels the Amazon as submerged ruin and utopia.
- Dropspike (Leticia Ramos) imagines a future in which strange phenomena appear across landscapes of Arctic thaw.
- Urth (Ben Rivers) follows the solitary life of a woman in a closed, experimental environment — perhaps the last woman on Earth.
- ALTIPLANO (Malena Szlam) explores the geological materiality of northern Chile and the Andean desert.
- Un hombre que camina (Enrique Ramírez) is set on the Salar de Uyuni, where the act of walking becomes a crossing through different temporalities.
Organized by: Fundación Mar Adentro, Fundación Kadist, Sala K – Universidad Mayor, and Museo de Historia Natural Río Seco.
With the support of: the Office of Community Engagement and the Office of Student Affairs, Universidad Mayor.
