Where the Sea, Memory, and Algae Meet: Art, Roots, and Heritage at the Los Vilos Cultural Warehouse

By Gustavo Arenas Gallardo.

Exhibition by Catalina Bauer.

The ruins of a warehouse dating to 1860 have been transformed, for the past 24 years, into a relevant space for art, culture, sustainability, and education in the Choapa Province, Coquimbo Region. This place, on the shores of the Los Vilos port, where sailors, merchants, and fishers once exchanged goods, is today a center where contemporary art, workshops, and environmental initiatives—open to the community—come together. This month, our device LaCápsula will arrive there, with the tour of the exhibition They Will Survive the Surges, the Centuries, and the Dreams: Sensory Approaches to Algae.

We spoke with Gustavo Arenas –director of the Los Vilos Warehouse–, a visual artist from the province, who recounts how he became linked to this space and its purpose from when he was a child attending botanical illustration workshops (1) to today, when the Warehouse dialogues with multiple layers of the territory, interweaving identity, heritage, and the environment (2). This context resonates with the work of our foundation and in particular, with the exhibition on algae which, in this version, expands toward light projections and imaginaries, preserving its sensory matrix through forms, sounds, colors, and natural memory.
Fundación Mar Adentro: How would you describe the current moment of the artistic and cultural scene in Los Vilos?

Gustavo Arenas (GA): The local artistic scene is always in development. Generations are changing and adapting to a cultural and institutional system that, through projects, seeks to fund and ensure the continuity of cultural production. In that sense, Los Vilos has quite an interesting wealth of artists, cultural managers, and civil society organizations working with their environment, making visible and reflecting on different themes such as the environment, heritage, and identity.
In that scenario, the Warehouse is a meeting point for contemporary art, where these themes are productively challenged to broaden questions and reflections. Through our School and Community program, we pose these concerns to future generations, who throughout this time have had access to and have systematically visited each of our exhibitions, where we hope to contribute to their integral development. We believe that the work is never finished, understanding that culture is living and transforms. There is still much to be done.

FMA: Have you reflected on how territory emerges through artworks? How has the Los Vilos ecosystem influenced your creative and artistic perspectives?
GA: The cultural and social context, the landscape, ultimately the place where you live and grow, deeply influences the way you see the world. In the Choapa, there is currently a generation of artists where all these elements are present as image, as reflection, and as matter, and in turn, it is these works that return another perspective to that ecosystem of which we are part, nourishing and questioning what we were, are, and where we are heading. Personally, the sea, the sky, the night, ancestral cultures (3), are elements present in my work and thinking, where the familiar becomes distant and strange to me, and there the search is triggered to find and generate meaning.

FMA: What programmatic objectives does the Los Vilos Cultural Warehouse have today, and how do they connect with your perspective, both as an original inhabitant of the province and as an artist?
GA: At the Warehouse we work around three strategic axes: relevance, local roots, and sustainability. As for relevance, we want to be an important space for national, local, and international contemporary art, with a quality artistic proposal and collaborative with artistic and cultural agents.
Regarding local roots, it refers to the importance of being part of the place we inhabit, recognizing and fostering opportunities for encounter through art and local culture. Likewise, sustainability goes hand in hand with our purpose of contributing, through what we do, to the integral development of people in the Choapa. For this reason, we created our School and Community program, with the aim of sowing artistic and cultural regeneration for the Choapa.
All of the above is something I have been part of; for example, as a child I participated in art workshops on native flora and heritage at the Warehouse. Subsequently, I participated as an artist, and for 15 years I have been working from the Warehouse generating spaces for encounter between local, national, and international knowledge and artistic expressions.

FMA: What role does this space fulfill, and what legacy do you believe it has generated in its more than two decades of existence?
GA: The Warehouse, as an old warehouse at the port of Los Vilos, is one of the foundational buildings of the city we know today. In its origins, it was a space for the exchange of goods. Today those goods, crossings, and exchanges are symbolic. They come and go, and its legacy has been to promote creativity from what is our own, but also recognizing and valuing what is different. It is in this encounter that new possibilities are born for future generations.

Exhibition by Magdalena Atria

FMA: In relation to the mark that the Warehouse has made, in terms of historical, artistic, cultural, and environmental connection, how does the exhibition They Will Survive the Surges, the Centuries, and the Dreams: Sensory Approaches to Algae fit in?
GA: This exhibition allows us, as it has throughout the years, to return to the sea. Over these 24 years we have held artistic exhibitions dedicated to the sea. Drawing near and knowing its richness invites us to connect with people and organizations deeply linked in their work with the environment. Despite our proximity to the ocean, many have not known or had the opportunity to look at this ecosystem in a different way and recognize the abundance that inhabits its surface, its shores, and its depths.

FMA: In relation to algae harvesting practices and the ecosystemic role of algae in the area, what expectations do you have regarding the reception of this exhibition in terms of territorial connection?
GA: This exhibition manages to look at a vital resource for the development of the marine ecosystem from another angle. I am referring to science and aesthetic appreciation, the colors, movements, relationships, and possibilities. Thus, consciousness about the elements that are part of our environment grows. At the same time, consciousness about the function of algae on the planet grows, emerging through the possibilities it offers as material and the importance of its conservation. In Los Vilos there are men and women of the sea who live from the extraction of this resource, and by knowing it, the perspective on how we can relate widens. Art is a form of knowledge, a bridge and medium of action capable of transmitting ideas through sensible experiences that can be understood by all. The link between art, education, and community integrates and strengthens to access different spaces that until now we have been unable to appreciate.

References:
(1) Of species from the area, such as cinnamon, quillay, maiten, and corcolen.
(2) Currently, for example, there is an exhibition by artist Estefanía Muñoz, which rescues the material and immaterial heritage of the Coquimbo Region, particularly of the city of Illapel. Centered on adobe architecture, the artist references the area’s past as a historical settlement of Diaguita culture, its relevance in the field of astronomy, and its significant seismic activity.
(3) Where memory and heritage of indigenous peoples such as the Changos, Diaguitas, Mapuche, and Aymaras converge.