A concert by maestro Roberto Bravo and an exhibition on poet Enrique Lihn are part of the cultural events that Santiago de Chile will present as the guest city of honor at FIL Buenos Aires.
As part of the launch of the Buenos Aires International Book Fair in the Argentine capital, organizers presented their plan for the fair, with Santiago de Chile awarded guest city of honor.
Santiago will visit Buenos Aires bringing with her the voices of her inhabitants, and offering a journey that will take in her richness and diversity. Readings, conferences, keynote speeches and professional meetings will build spaces for coming together and conversing with the public, in line with the long and rich cultural tradition that exists between the people of Argentina and Chile.
Laying down a narrative thread that takes people to each of the proposed spaces and imaginaries, Santiago’s cultural offer will generate diverse conversations from a contemporary perspective on topics as broad as the city’s origins, miscegenation and migratory processes. It will include urban reflections and modernity, the dictatorship, the neoliberal development of the city and cultural resistance, the new axes of center and periphery, social mobilization, the progress and setbacks of democratic processes, and memory and human rights.
A city that grows and bustles at a dizzying pace, and that expresses multiple temporalities and forms, which happen with overwhelming force and configure urgent demands for a transformation based on diversity and dignity.
Santiago de Chile’s participation is headed by the Metropolitan Regional Government, through its governor Claudio Orrego, and the Cultures, Arts and Heritage Ministry, through the Cultures and Arts Undersecretary’s Office led by Andrea Gutiérrez. The delegation also includes the Metropolitan Regional Secretary’s Office of the Cultures Ministry, Fundación Imagen de Chile, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, via ProChile and the Cultural Affairs Department.
“It gives us tremendous pride as a region that Santiago will be the guest city at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair. It is a way to further unite two sister nations such as Chile and Argentina. It is also a tremendous honor because, in this new version that has been launched today, Santiago will be the protagonist as the capital city. A metropolis that is becoming a cultural and artistic pacesetter throughout Latin America. At the Regional Government, we are working to turn Santiago into a city brand at the continental level, and this is an auspicious occasion to do so alongside prominent Chilean writers. This is an invitation that will allow us to show our country’s literary wealth, but also to present other attractions that make Santiago an unmissable destination: mountains, vineyards, art, culture, gastronomy, tourism and great shows all in one place,” explained the governor of the Metropolitan Region, Claudio Orrego.
For Cultures and Arts Undersecretary Andrea Gutiérrez, “this is an opportunity to generate a very valuable space for the book sector because the entire literary ecosystem will be present, from creation to marketing. These are fundamental for the growth and strengthening of this important sector that, as a government, we consider essential to people’s lives. This fair will undoubtedly be a space for plentiful conversation and coming together that, in addition to the literary, will be enriched by a diverse cultural and artistic presence that seeks to continue strengthening the ties of cultural friendship between both nations.”
The executive director of Fundación Imagen de Chile, Rossana Dresdner, stated, “it is an honor that our capital, Santiago de Chile, is the main guest at FIL Buenos Aires. For those of us who have the task of telling the world about Chile, the story of the eight main themes that our presence at the fair will highlight is especially powerful. As a foundation, it seems to express not only what Santiago is, but also what Chile is. That diverse Chile, often contradictory, but without doubt alive; traditional and modern, moderate and bold, cosmopolitan and provincial, with roots in the earth and dreams in the sky.”
Program
The literary program is composed of eight main themes that will present the different political, social and cultural stories that describe the capital of Chile.
- The Santiago that left
- Mestizo Santiago
- Peripheral Santiago
- The Santiago of social protest
- The modernization of Santiago
- Dissident Santiago
- The Santiago from other territories
- Santiago, memory and human rights.
Authors who will be part of the delegation
David Añiñir, Claudio Alvarado Lincopi, Kathya Araujo, Alejandro Aravena, Pía Barros, Carmen Berenguer, Álvaro Bisama, Daniela Catrileo, Pedro Cayuqueo, Elicura Chihuailaf, Carlos Cociña, Óscar Contardo, Alejandra Costamagna, Ivonne Coñuecar, Ramón Díaz Eterovic, Diamela Eltit, Evelyn Erlij, Víctor Farrú, Nona Fernández, Patricio Fernández, Alberto Fuguet, Macarena García Moggia, Cristian Geisse, Antonio Gil, Paula González Seguel, Elvira Hernández, Andrea Jeftanovic, Miguel Laborde, Elizabeth Lira, Francisca Márquez, Nicolás Meneses, Sonia Montecino, Rosabetty Muñoz, Lola Larra, Francisco Ortega, Juan Cristóbal Peña, Carlos Peña, Carlos Reyes, Ariel Richards, Cynthia Rimsky, Claudia Rodríguez, Leticia Sánchez, Leonardo Sanhueza, Pablo Simonetti, Simón Soto, Juan Pablo Sutherland, Carlos Soto Román, Maivo Suarez, Marcela Trujillo, Pablo Toro, Marcela Valdés, Mario Verdugo, Francisca Yáñez, Verónica Zondek, Raúl Zurita.
Artistic and cultural program
Other activities will accompany this visit, such as music, cinema and exhibitions. They will be held in different spaces, such as the stand that is provided to the guest city, the Matta Cultural Center that belongs to, and is located next to, the Chilean Embassy, and Teatro Colón. On Wednesday, April 26 at 8:00pm, Roberto Bravo, one of the most nationally and internationally recognized Chilean pianists, will perform both popular and classical music. Meanwhile, on Friday, April 28 at 7:30pm, an exhibition on Enrique Lihn entitled “Ghost of Flesh and Bone” will open at the Chilean Embassy in Argentina’s Matta Cultural Center.
The stand
The pavilion of Santiago de Chile, the guest city of honor, was designed by architects Emilio Marín and Rodrigo Sepúlveda, winners of Chile’s last submission to the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The pavilion is structured around architectural components and/or elements that are recognizable in the city’s physical geography and natural and urban landscape. They are suggested in a space composed of a base and a suspended plane.
On the one hand, we can recognize in it the 3% slope that extends from east to west, on which the hills, the mountain range and the valley are natural elements that have always been present in our daily lives and our ways of representing the city: illustrations, cartographies or plans of its foundational grid. On the other hand, there is an interest in linking the elements of Santiago’s landscape with the experience of designed space and its aesthetics.
More information
More information can be found on the Santiago de Chile Ciudad Literaria website and the Cultures and Arts Undersecretary’s Office @subseculturas social networks on Twitter and Instagram.
