Transdisciplinary thinkers and creators of meaning: Cecilia Vicuña and Gastón Soublette were recognized as National Awards

Transdiscipline, creation and reflection in multiple formats and materials, as well as the generation of work and knowledge aimed at valuing native living cultures, have been central axes in the trajectories of Cecilia Vicuña and Gastón Soublette. The artist, poet and activist, as well as the philosopher, aesthete and musicologist, obtained the 2023 National Award in their areas of relevant career.

Poetics of the earth

The artist Cecilia Vicuña (1948-), one of the most globally renowned Chilean creators, received the National Award after having recently obtained the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, among other national and international awards. His work, characterized by making visible those displaced demonstrations, summoning silenced voices, has focused on issues such as the socio-ecological crisis, human rights and the enhancement of manifestations of native peoples, through performance, poetry and visual arts.

Currently, Vicuña is based in the United States from where she reacted to the nomination: “My dream was that my life would begin after my death, and now with this award it will be able to materialize. The important thing is that these thoughts, this feeling, this way of being ours, is what we have to love and value above all things. The earth is going to heal when we heal ourselves, when we stop acting with violence and hatred,” he said.

The creation of sculptural works made from waste, the creation of installations designed to disappear into nature, together with the founding of collectives and manifestos around the need to separate literary art from bureaucracy, have been part of the route of the artist, who has woven a path nourished by reflections on the need for equality, democracy and appreciation of indigenous worldviews through multiple materialities.

Various works by Cecilia Vicuña are now part of the collections of relevant art and culture galleries around the world, such as the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art in New York); the Tate Modern Gallery in London; the Guggenheim in New York; the Frac Lorraine in France and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chile, among others.

Virtue and wisdom, the path of transcendence

Gastón Soublette, for his part, has witnessed the history of Chile and the world. On the verge of turning 100 years old, he received the National Humanities Award not only for his extensive work of literary creation around philosophy, musicology and aesthetics, but also for his role as “teacher of traditional Chilean culture”, according to the Ministry of Education after the news was released.

It has been precisely his role as a researcher and teacher that has positioned Soublette as a fundamental actor in the study of the traditions of various cultures, since he has carried out transdisciplinary explorations in fields such as philosophy, religion, art and the orality of ancestral peoples. . This is how, among his publications, there are works linked to the Mapuche worldview, Taoist thought, reflections on books such as I Ching and, at the same time, theorizations on contingent social phenomena such as the Chilean popular revolt.

Historically restless, the thinker not only sought to draw on the knowledge of native peoples to later relieve them in the academic field; Along with being one of the founders of the Institute of Aesthetics of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in the 1980s, Gastón Soublette was also linked to the creative work of relevant artists, such as the singer-songwriter and compiler Violeta Parra.

Regarding his work as a teacher and the need to build a humanistic thought through transdiscipline, Soublette recently underlined in an interview the importance of “education, in all university disciplines, having a formative basis for the human person, to the recovery of the fundamental values that we have lost; virtue, wisdom, notion of meaning and transcendence”.

Likewise, when giving its verdict, the award jury highlighted the philosopher for his critical role of knowledge and the contextualization of human beings in their relationship with nature, “a necessary scholar in the times we live in, an inspirer who brings together different disciplines with the authority few have. A man of peace.”

* Given the value of the legacy of Cecilia Vicuña and Gastón Soublette, as Fundación Mar Adentro, we have sought to highlight the trajectory of both, as well as to be in tune with their values and their critical, sensitive and creative spirit that has nurtured the work of these two thinkers and creators of meaning who, we hope, continue to impact new generations.

Sources: memoriachilena.cl/ Patrimoniocultural.gov/ Estetica.uc.cl/ El Mercurio