The proposal is developed by the Council of Culture, through the areas of Dance, New Media, Photography and Visual Arts, together with SACO (Week of Contemporary Art in Antofagasta).
Ten Chilean artists will be in Quillagua from 6 until 13 September, undertaking research and development focused on Quillagua, an Aymara population located 280 kilometers north of Antofagasta and that was declared by NASA as "the driest place on earth."
The artists, led by Dagmara Wyskiel and Christian Núñez, have been working since 2011 in the small town, an oasis that once had over a thousand inhabitants and today has only about 120.
The artists represents the fields of visual arts, dance, photography and new media: Elisa Balmaceda, Rainer Krause, Natascha de Cortillas, Julio Escobar, Celeste Rojas, Luciano Paiva, Francisca Gazitua, Gonzalo Santander, Rafael Silva and Camila Díaz. These artists work on site seeking links with the context from various disciplines.
Quillagua is like a laboratory. It seems to gather several global issues: water loss, loss of identity, abandonment, internal divisions and destruction of heritage, and all this in a striking landscape.
For the CNCA, the Residency Program developed as part of New Media, Dance, Visual Arts and Photography, "aims at giving a creative platform for Chilean artists in territories where the landscape, geography and history are an important factor for project development. You should think of the Residences of Art as a program that serves a more permanent public policy. This is where we are finding our focus, at the intersection of creativity and its deployment throughout the country, and in the collaborative work with cultural actors in the region, "adds Simon Perez, coordinator of the field of New Media.
This residence in Quillagua will be the first experience of the residency program that CNCA is trying to develop in different parts of the country, and that soon will be opened to other artistic disciplines and artists from Latin America.