The voices of 525 residents of the José María Caro community make up the Chilean pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 17th International Architecture Exhibition 2021 in Venice
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The Chilean pavilion, entitled “Testimonial Spaces”, was organized by the Cultures, Arts and Heritage Ministry and opened to the public on May 22.
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The piece, curated by Emilio Marín and Rodrigo Sepúlveda, was selected following an open call for applications and offers a Chilean perspective on the theme of this year’s exhibition: How will we live together?
The Biennale Architettura di Venecia is the world’s foremost cultural event in the field of architecture. The Chilean pavilion was originally scheduled to open in May 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its opening until 2021.
The Chilean pavilion, located in the Arsenale di Venezia exhibition space, will exhibit the “Testimonial Spaces” project as its main piece, a display of 525 paintings created using the testimonies of residents from the José María Caro community in Santiago, who have drawn on past and present experience to respond to the question of how we will live together.
“We at the Cultures Ministry are extremely proud to continue supporting the Chilean pavilion at the Venice Biennale, architecture’s foremost event that brings the team’s work to the international stage. This piece in particular elicits questions and reflections about how we will live together, presenting the shared life stories of the José María Caro community in Santiago through testimony and painting,” explained Cultures Minister Consuelo Valdés. Minister Valdés also commented that the exhibit displays “well-rounded content and sharp architectural design. Its wooden structure set firmly on the floor of a heritage building offers a space for timeless reflection on our present and future, through cross-disciplinary perspectives that add different layers and meanings to give form to the exhibition.”
The project was selected by a distinguished jury, following an open call for applications in 2019 organized by the architecture division of the Chilean Cultures, Arts and Heritage Ministry. Its curators are both architecture graduates of the Universidad de Chile: Emilio Marín is a professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Studies of the Pontificia Universidad Católica; and Rodrigo Sepúlveda is an academic in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidad de Chile. The curatorial team also includes the artist and academic of the Universidad de Chile, Pablo Ferrer; the historian Juan Radic; the graphic designer María Gracia Fernández; the museographer Pablo Brugnoli; and the lighting consultant Victoria Campino.
The Chilean pavilion in Venice is open to visitors from Saturday, May 22, to Sunday, November 2021. Next year, it will also be open to the public in Chile. This is an initiative of the Chilean State, led by its Cultures, Arts and Heritage Ministry, with support from the Foreign Relations Ministry’s Office of Cultural Affairs.