From the mountains to the sea: Teachers and students from La Araucanía present exhibition inspired by learning from nature

Opening open to the public: Thursday, August 21 | 7:00 p.m. Confirm your attendance HERE.
Dates: From August 21 to September 14
Venue: Centro Cultural Liquen, Prat 880, Villarrica, La Araucanía Region

A textile cartography depicting medicinal plants; fanzines exploring the search for identity; and a documentary traveling along the Toltén River basin created by children are some of the works featured in Knowing the Landscape with Your Hands, opening Thursday, August 21 at the Liquen Cultural Center in Villarrica. This collective project gathers archives, records, and creations by teachers and students from La Araucanía, born from transdisciplinary explorations driven by Fundación Mar Adentro’s Docente Activo program (FMA).

Since 2012, this program has invited educators to participate in co-learning experiences in nature, fostering ecosystem care through artistic experimentation. The exhibition—highlighting the role of art as a transformative tool—presents the last five years of the program, addressing topics such as resilience, regeneration, interdependence, and biocultural education. It invites a rethinking of the teacher’s role as both artist and researcher—an artographer—while students take center stage in creative processes.

Manuela Méndez, FMA’s Director of Learning, explains that the essence of this initiative is inspired by the “ecology of cohabiting,” understood as “the study of the home and the complex relationships across multiple scales and contexts, which include atmospheric phenomena, bonds with other species, and especially our human relationships.” She adds: “Our capacities to listen to each other, to feel, to collaborate, and to coexist are essential for an ecology of cohabiting, where schools play a fundamental role in this learning.”

The exhibition also brings together visual poems, photographic and audiovisual records, as well as installations and collaborative creations. Regarding this, María Jesús Olivos, FMA’s Mediation Coordinator, notes that it is “an invitation to reconnect with the landscape through the senses, emotions, and artistic practice. It’s a way to explore and narrate our relationship through curiosity and memory.”

The curatorial design takes the Toltén River basin as its reference point, proposing a journey from the mountains to the sea, visually linking the works through a map representing its various waterways. “This territorial and symbolic structure seeks to reflect the connection between different ecosystems and how pedagogical experiences converge into a shared narrative of connection with the basin,” says Fiorella Angelini, General Coordinator of the project and part of FMA’s learning team.

Making students’ perspectives visible

Highlighting the active role of children as creative agents—capable of expressing, imagining, and reflecting from their own realities—as well as promoting the expansion of collaboration networks between schools, families, and other cultural and educational spaces, are among the goals of this exhibition.

For Valeska Duten, film workshop facilitator at Pichares Elementary School in Pucón, this opportunity is especially valuable for rural schools, where such experiences are less common. Her work addresses sensory experiences through landmarks of the Toltén River basin captured audiovisually. Duten states: “By placing children as protagonists, their right to have an opinion, a stance, and to show their way of seeing the world is recognized and affirmed. It is a deep visibility, where they themselves share a creative expression with others through a work of art.”

Meanwhile, Gerela Lifche Ramírez, visual arts teacher at San Luis School in Curarrehue, will present Lawen Trekan, a textile cartography created with students from 1st to 6th grade. She highlights the intergenerational and place-based value of this experience as a form of meaningful learning: “The most valuable thing about this work is that it was created not only in the classroom but also in dialogue with families. Through the memories of grandparents, children were able to reconstruct the natural environment they inhabit and reflect on what has changed, what remains, and what must be cared for and regenerated.”

Weaving networks of collaboration

How can we learn and teach from the territory? These and other questions will be addressed in the discussion panel on education, art, and territory to be held on Thursday, September 4 at 6:30 p.m. at the Liquen Cultural Center in Villarrica. The event will bring together educators from different editions of the Docente Activo program to share experiences on well-being within the educational community, sensitive teaching, and transdisciplinary methodologies that promote place-based learning and ecosystem care.

Participants include: Gabriela Cervera from Escuela Libre Sombra de Árbol; Cristian Sepúlveda and María José Roa from Escuela Juan Bautista Chesta; Elisa Tironi and Aurora Vergara from Fundación Bayos; and Lorena Acuña with Brisa Morandi from the Fragua educational space. Register for the panel HERE.

The program also includes guided tours: one with students from various local schools whose teachers have participated in the program, and another open to the general public on Saturday, September 6 at 4:00 p.m.

Technical sheet of the works:

1. Ni lo uno ni lo otro. Scarlette Rodríguez and Francisca Marín with high school students from Liceo Politécnico de Villarrica.
2. Lawen Trekan. Gerela Lifche Ramírez and Helga Krause with students Rocío Kutcher, Juan Muñoz, Misael Curinao, Elier Luengo, Benjamín Luengo, Camila Huilipan.
3. Viaje por la cuenca del Toltén. Valeska Duten and Adelina Ordiqueo with all students from Escuela Pichares.
4. Docente Activo 2020–2025 Photographic Compilation by Josefina Astorga.
5. Sumergirse. Lorena Acuña, Brisa Morandi and students from Escuela Fragua.
6. Collaborative Work Nido. Docente Activo 2023–2024–2025.
7. Nuestro parque en décimas. Manuel Calcagni and Constanza Salas with 6th-grade students from Colegio Pucón.
8. Cachaña. Gabriela Cervera and Julia Gutiérrez with 11–13-year-old students from Escuela Libre Sombra de Árbol.
9. Docente Activo 2024 Audiovisual Record by Unmapped Film.
10. Te miro, te observo, te valoro. Cristian Andrés Sepúlveda and María José Roa with 7th-grade students from Escuela Juan Bautista de Chesta.
11. Imaginar la interdependencia. Recreation of a collaborative work from Docente Activo 2025.