The Week of Contemporary Art, SACO, is held annually in the region of Antofagasta, in the north of Chile, as an independent initiative of the Collective SE SOLD Mobile Platform of Contemporary Art. Its objective is to establish in the Atacama Desert a permanent nucleus of reflection, criticism and dialogue through the meeting of artists, experts, works and the public, in a territory marked by the absence of institutions dedicated to pursuing these ends. In the world capital of copper mining, it proposes as an alternative to deepen in excavations no less valuable, or less urgent and of a renewable wealth: creativity and dialogue.
Each edition of SACO has a particular focus and unique characteristics. In this way, the land to be excavated is renewed annually, preventing the depletion of resources in the deposits.
DESTINY
Inquire about destiny to extend the existential arc between where do we come from? and where are we going? at the great airport of infinity, it was the objective of the international exhibition at Melbourne Clark Pier in the framework of the Eighth Festival of Contemporary Art in the Atacama Desert; site specific of seven artists selected from 226 applications from four continents, projected our eyes towards the future, attracting the attention of almost 31 thousand visitors.
The exhibition circuit museum without museum in Antofagasta and San Pedro de Atacama, developed twelve exhibitions, bringing together more than 40 artists from fifteen countries and the presence of approximately 13 thousand 300 people in the twelve exhibition spaces that form part of the North Archipelago Network.
This year, SACO generated residences, workshops, a curatorial panel and liaison with students by carrying out various activities in schools and high schools in addition to the visit to the museum without museum circuit and to the Destination , reaching in all these instances more than 13 thousand young people.
SACO continued the path of intertwining science and art through the development of residences that resulted in five exhibitions, which reflected this symbiosis of knowledge, without neglecting the generation of foci of criticism and dialogue between artists, their works and the community through works that strongly questioned nationalisms by burying their flags in the sea, xenophobia and racism by breaking into public places that made us reflect on our tolerance towards migration; the hunger of the human being to appropriate the territory and technological knowledge, even when thinking about extra-planetary conquests while on Earth, a robot traveled the driest desert in the world rescuing water from the atmosphere, demonstrating that through small acts, we can still fight the climate crisis that affects us. The value of ancestral cultures was also the protagonist of several exhibitions, as well as the participation of emerging artists who drew in their works, looking at an apocalyptic and dark future, although still sketching hope.
ORIGIN AND MYTH
Seventh edition of SACO Festival of Contemporary Art "Origin and myth" offers its public twelve exhibitions distributed in the exhibition circuit museum without a museum in Antofagasta and San Pedro de Atacama, a panel, a conference, four conferences, a clinic, three workshops and two portfolio reviews. In addition, this year's program includes thirteen international residences in Calama, San Pedro de Atacama and Antofagasta, four meetings in schools in Antofagasta, Mejillones and Quillagua, a meeting of scientists from the area of archeology and anthropology with curators and artists in San Pedro de Atacama and two contextualization trips towards the interior of the region.
LOVE: Decay and resistance
Under conditions of swells and strong winds, all the artists spent several days working hard at the pier, and the result of this resistance as a whole undoubtedly surprises those who visited the heritage center of the Antofagasta coast. The museographic project of the tour, created by the curator Dagmara Wyskiel, takes us from the most carnal, hidden, violent, immediate and sexist, exposed directly to the city and its noise, chance and rapidity (Mosquera and Ciudad), for the sentimental, social, territorial, in the central area of the wharf (Jackson, Castañeda and Pabón), to finish with works dedicated to the symbolic and transcendental, far from the noise, and with a look towards infinity, towards the sky and the sea (Warck -Meister, Foglino)
The international exhibition brought together seven artists: Fernando Foglino (Uruguay), Adriana Ciudad (Peru), Ana Mosquera (Venezuela), Lucia Warck-Meister (Argentina), Nicholas Jackson (Chile), Oscar Pabón (Venezuela) and Paz Castañeda ( Chile). The jury was made up of Raquel Schwartz (Bolivia), Rodolfo Andaur (Chile), Marcos Figueroa (Argentina), Alejandra Villasmil (Venezuela), and Dagmara Waykiel (Poland).
ONE WAY TICKET
The emigrations constitute one of the most significant and transversal stamps of our times and drag all social sectors, continents and professions. It is the reality that slowly and with several foci of resistance, we assume. The right to choose, in the 21st century, where I want to live and work, seems to be unquestionable. But it is not, neither in this one, nor in the other sides of the Atlantic or Pacific. The waves of others cause fear, xenophobia and nationalism in a segment; empathy and solidarity in another. By forming our judgments, we should never forget that every decision of this nature matures in the intimacy of a family and entails a sacrifice that goes far beyond the material.
The international exhibition brought together six artists and three curators: Ángel Delgado (Cuba / USA), Bogdan Achimescu (Romania / Poland), Paula Quintela (Chile / Australia), Johannes Pfeiffer (Germany / Italy), Alicja Rogalska (Poland) / England) and Teresa Solar (Egypt / Spain). The works were presented, along with the proposal of the curators Flavia Introzzi (Argentina / Spain); Krzysztof Gutfranski (Poland); Marisa Caichiolo (Argentina / USA).
BETWEEN FORM AND MOLD
The exhibition Between the form and the mold , showed the results of the workshops carried out by more than 80 students of the Norte Grande together with seven Latin American artists-teachers, within the framework of the 4th Week of Contemporary Art of Antofagasta, SACO4.
More than 80 selected young people participated then, from August 24 to 28 of that year, in intensive workshops, guided by relevant artists in the international scene and who are also teachers who in their countries lead alternative training spaces: Roberto Huarcaya del Center of the Image of Lima, Peru; Alejandro Turell of the Technique in Arts - Plastic and Visual Arts of the National School Institute of Fine Arts, University of the Republic, Rocha, Uruguay; Saidel Brito from ITAE, Higher Technological Institute of Arts of Ecuador, Guayaquil; Fernanda Mejía from the Multinational Workshop of Mexico City; Marcos Benítez of the Museo del Barro, Asunción, Paraguay; Luis Gómez from ISA, University of the Arts, Havana, Cuba; and Tomás Rivas from the Bloc Workshop, Santiago, Chile.
MY NEIGHBOR. THE OTHER
From 21 to 31 August 2014, SACO3 made a leap towards the international arena and a key issue for the area: the complex relationship between Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Under the title My neighbor. The other , started with the conviction that "through art it is possible to delve into fractured lands, which few dare to touch," reflected its director, Dagmara Wyskiel. In ten days of exhibition and activities for the public, more than three thousand people arrived at the Huanchaca Cultural Park. With the participation of artists, curators and relevant researchers from the three countries, new bridges of communication with other territories were also opened. SACO3 could thus become a cultural landmark from the north of the country.
The work teams were made up of: Gustavo Buntinx, Harold Hernández, César Cornejo and Elliot Túpac Urcuhuaranga, from Peru; Lucía Querejazu, Juan Fabbri, Andrés Bedoya and Jaime Achocalla, from Bolivia; more Rodolfo Andaur, Damir Galaz-Mandakovic, Claudio Correa and Catalina González, from Chile.
In 2013, SACO was from August 24 to September 1 at the Huanchaca Cultural Park, inaugurating an alliance with the institution located in the centenary ruins of a former silver smelter that is now a National Historic Monument. SACO2 proposed as a central theme a particular phenomenon of recent times in contemporary art: the emergence of autonomous management in regions or areas peripheral to the epicenters, arriving from Concepcion, Pedro Aguirre Cerda (Santiago) and Cordova (Argentina), respectively, Managers Leslie Fernández and Óscar Concha de Móvil, Ana María Saavedra and Luis Alarcón from Metropolitan Gallery, plus Jorge Sepúlveda and Ilze Petroni from Forensic Curators, who held talks and a general forum. From Antofagasta, the host collective, SE SOLD, was added with Dagmara Wyskiel and Christian Núñez.
Within the character of work clinic that had that week of daily coexistence, there were accurate conclusions about common modes of operation, all starting to be defined from the "autonomy" rather than the "independence", being managements that do not work in isolation, but on the basis of "effective and affective" relationships, as defined by the Forensic Curator. The work with artists and art producers has obeyed to processes of dialogue and joint reflection, being also constant the use of public space or operations from the territory, as well as modes of creation in process, or events with social implications.
ART + POLITICS + ENVIRONMENT
The first version of SACO had as an activity axis Arte + Política + Medio Ambiente , an open international exhibition from July 12 to August 31, 2012 at the Estación Antofagasta Cultural Center. Under the curatorship of the Argentine Marisa Caichiolo, the exhibition placed an eminently contemporary art project in the local environment. With installations, photography, video and works with objects, he gathered five artists from America, Africa and Europe: Karen Perry and Arcángel Constantini from Mexico, Mohamed Abu El Naga from Egypt, the Argentine Andrea Juan and the Polish artist based in Antofagasta, Dagmara Wyskiel.
Multicultural, transdisciplinary and nomadic, integrated processes of experimental work and thematic context in relation to climate change, sociopolitical revolutions of recent times, and their implications for the development of localities, explained Marisa Caichiolo, the objective being " training and awareness to the viewer to become an active agent of sustainable development, education and understanding of the communities ... The public act as a discursive exercise in each of the proposals takes a responsible attitude proposing appropriate actions of an effective nature to create awareness of fractures or Conflicting spaces regarding these three concepts and thus implement intercultural and interdisciplinary solutions, "he added in the curatorial text.
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