Meeting with biocultural heritage and reflections on territorial limits were part of our participation in the 2023 Science Festival

During the first week of October we became part of the Science Festival (FECI), an initiative that takes place in various regions of the country open to the public. In La Araucanía we were part of the convening institutions – together with the Ministry of Science, Knowledge, Technology and Information, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Catholic University of Temuco – with the implementation of two sessions of artistic mediation workshops on biocultural memory and a session on water. In addition, we were present at the exhibition Efecto panorama: Laboratorio colectivo de imaginación territorial. 

Workshops on biocultural memory and sensory explorations around water

The first workshop we gave was titled “La memoria del bosque”, an occasion in which we presented our homonymous suitcase, a memory repository that stores a variety of objects that invite us to explore the biocultural richness of the forests of the Andean Araucanía. Through the experimentation of the senses, this object offers a sound postcard available in QR code, reflections on the food tradition of this area reflected in a fanzine nurtured by women gatherers, and a collective fanzine made in the Curarrehue area.

The first format of this workshop was carried out together with various generations. Brisa Morandi, one of the participants, pointed out that she valued the mediation instance, as well as “the use of concepts and materials from the forest to make us part of a work with everyday elements. Furthermore, it is important that the material we develop will remain in the Villarica library, so that we will be able to see it in a few more years.”

For her part, Flavia Cifuentes, another of the participants, stated that the event took her back to her memories of forest foods, such as pine nuts, digüeñes and maqui, “which I learned to collect and eat since I was a girl.” story. Additionally, she highlighted the space as a time to connect with others and relax.

This workshop had a second edition with children and adolescents from the region. Likewise, an instance of artistic mediation called  Ojo de Agua: Un viaje sensorial a los fondos acuosos was carried out, a space that sought to approach water through the senses and sensory imaginaries and the movement of this element. This activity was replicated at FECI Los Ríos, where we were also present in a conversation or Trawün (in Mapudungun) entitled The Mountain: where life and culture are born, in which the water cycle in a hydrographic basin was delved into, from a socioecological perspective. Researchers from the UACh and the Southern Andes Natural Laboratory of Chile participated in this dialogue, who shared experiences and knowledge about water, hydrographic basins and the communities that inhabit them together with students from the commune of Panguipulli.

An exhibition that challenged territorial limits

At the Local Development Center (CEDEL) of the Villarrica UC Campus, within the framework of FECI, the Panorama Effect exhibition: Collective Laboratory of Territorial Imagination was developed, an instance of which we were part with the exhibition of two works by the Chilean artist Claudia Müller, who participated in our Residency program in Bosque Pehuén, a conservation area managed by our foundation in Palguín Alto, Pucón.

One of the works on display is called Orbital (2018), an installation composed of a motorized object from which three volcanic stones are suspended that simulate meteorites wrapped in the same electromagnetic field. The work suggests the notion of a stone family composed of three subjects that present a cyclic movement in a fixed orbit, whose alignment is always changing. The installation is complemented by a projected image captured in real time of the three stones in orbit.

The artist’s second exhibited work was Liquid Border (2021), a visual story composed of three moments that transit between the limits of the underwater and terrestrial world, where the relationship between water and the universe is addressed. The script is a sound journey that presents physical phenomena of light and water, these elements being portals to access the underworld and other possible dimensions in dialogue with the figure of the rainbow, which connects with the Andean worldview.

Other prominent artists who were present at the exhibition, mainly through audiovisual formats, installations and sculptures, were Seba Calfuqueo, Harun Farocki, Jonas Staal and Francisca Montes. The exhibition sought to become an invitation to imagine, think, expand and question the established ways of understanding the territory, blurring the limits of heaven and earth.