Video Art Series Brought Together Landscapes, Narratives, and Flavors in Santiago and Punta Arenas

The video art series “Wilderness of a stateless mind” which first toured in 2025 at Fogo Island, Canada, journeyed through central and southern Chile. The first event took place on May 6 at Sala K – U. Mayor, bringing together 100 attendees; this was followed by two opening events at MHNRS on May 8 and 9 — which welcomed 70 visitors — with screenings continuing until May 23. Presented by our foundation alongside KADIST, the initiative sought to invite audiences to imagine other ways of exploring landscapes.

The curatorship of this series includes 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 the ways we perceive the natural world. The landscapes addressed in these audiovisual works range from the Amazon to the Andean Altiplano, passing through the Arctic, a Colombian jungle, the Uyuni Salt Flats, and speculative environments, connecting the Americas through multiple ecological, cultural, and temporal layers. The featured works are:

AEQUADOR (Laura Huertas Millán) traverses the Amazon as both ruin and submerged utopia.

Dropspike (Leticia Ramos) imagines a future in which imaginary phenomena emerge across melting Arctic landscapes.

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.

A Man Walking (Enrique Ramírez) is set in the Uyuni Salt Flats, using the act of walking to move across multiple temporalities.

In Santiago, these images entered into dialogue with flavors originating from central Chilean landscapes, including ginkgo biloba (1), pine mushroom jerky, toasted Chilean hazelnuts, and beverages prepared by graphic designer and naturalist Miquel Moya, who explained that the samples presented required diverse processes. “For example, the hazelnuts are gathered, cracked open by hand one by one, and roasted in a callana (2), a process carried out by a muleteer; meanwhile, the pine mushroom jerky is collected, dehydrated, and later rehydrated in a seasoned marinade. We have two versions: sweet and spicy,” he explained, adding that wild fermentation with arrayán and other fruits was carried out using classical pre-Columbian techniques.

Regarding the opening event at Sala K – U. Mayor, Maya Errázuriz, director of art and publications at Fundación Mar Adentro and co-curator of the program (3), spoke about the inquiry that shaped the series: “We asked ourselves how to think about explorations of the natural world in the present, within territories that have been so heavily exploited or affected by extractivism; and we recognized the need to reconnect with inner exploration.” Meanwhile, Allegra Cordero Di Montezemolo, associate director of programs for Latin America, provided context about KADIST’s work as a space seeking to foster “progressivism in contemporary arts,” expressing her joy at seeing the circulation of this series materialize in a place distant from its first tour, and precisely within part of the territory addressed by the audiovisual works.

Following the screening, essayist and academic Paz López from the Department of Art Theory at the University of Chile presented reflections on the viewing experience, reminding audiences that “the world is an opaque place that, again and again, we must imagine,” while offering references for thinking about the future beyond the catastrophist perspective that is sometimes imposed. “Landscape is not in nature itself, but in the gaze, and in that sense, landscape is not discovered but invented,” she stated, while also recalling the colonial dangers and violences associated with the concept of discovery.

López added that the “videos in this series can be read through the lens of imagination where, more than nature, we see landscapes — often in crisis or pointing toward a world in crisis,” through references to abandoned settlements or sites of existing scientific projects such as Biosphere 2 in Arizona, where artificial ecosystems are produced (4). She also emphasized that the works suggest thinking about the withdrawal of the human, or a kind of uncoupling from the anthropomorphic gaze, prompting us to question human life “where it continues to be threatened,” and yet “these works are not presented in catastrophic ways.”

Experience in Río Seco

The second part of the series took place in Punta Arenas — continuing through May 23 — at the Río Seco Museum of Natural History (MHNRS). The venue opened its doors to share an experience of cinema, conversation, and southern cuisine. The opening included readings by writer Óscar Barrientos from his Oceanic Dictionary, as well as poetry by Andrés Azúa on notions of territory. The gathering continued with a pulmay prepared by the Río Seco Cultural Committee, so that each screening combined reflections on understanding a place through diverse perspectives and senses.

Regarding the event, Museum Director Miguel Cáceres stated that “we are interested in the issues surrounding video as connected to territorial content and reflections on cultural representations of landscapes considered extreme, as addressed by this series.” He added that the museum’s territorial context — Patagonia itself — occupies a place in the global imagination as a remote landscape “where nature causes human projects to fail: a vision born out of English and German Romanticism.”

At both venues — Santiago and Punta Arenas — a fanzine was presented featuring the texts “An Oceanic Dictionary Sleeps in the Wind” by Óscar Barrientos and “Synopsis” by Janice Kerbel, designed by FMA designer Bastián Pérez and translated by Carlos Reyes, FMA communications coordinator.

Footnotes

(1) An ancient Asian tree used as a natural supplement (primarily through extracts from its leaves), rich in flavonoids and terpenoids. It is mainly used to improve blood circulation, enhance memory, increase concentration, act as an antioxidant, and treat vascular disorders, vertigo, and cognitive decline.

(2) A traditional Chilean clay or iron vessel, ancestrally used to roast grains such as wheat or corn over embers.

(3) Together with KADIST co-founder and director for the Americas, Joseph del Pesco.

(4) In reference to the video Urth.

(5) The transformation of the human.