A concert by maestro Roberto Bravo and an exhibition of the poet Enrique Lihn, are part of the cultural offerings that Santiago de Chile will offer as guest of honor at the FIL Buenos Aires.
As part of the launching of the Buenos Aires International Book Fair in the Argentine capital, the main themes of the fair and Santiago de Chile as guest of honor were presented.
Santiago will visit Buenos Aires bringing the voices of those who inhabit it and proposing a tour that contemplates its richness and diversity. Readings, conferences, master lectures and professional meetings will build spaces for encounters and conversation with the public, as has been the long and rich cultural tradition between the peoples of Argentina and Chile.
Pulling a narrative thread that finally leads to each of the proposed spaces and imaginaries, generating diverse conversations, from a contemporary perspective, on topics as broad as the origins of Santiago, miscegenation and migratory processes; urban reflections and modernity; the dictatorship, the neoliberal development of the city and cultural resistance; the new axes of center and periphery; social mobilization and the advances and setbacks in the processes of democratization; memory and human rights, among others.
A city that grows and bustles at a vertiginous pace and that expresses multiple temporalities and forms; that happens with overwhelming force and configures unpostponable demands for transformation, in diversity and dignity.
The participation of Santiago de Chile is led by the Metropolitan Regional Government, through its governor Claudio Orrego, and the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, through the Undersecretary of Cultures and Arts, whose authority is Andrea Gutiérrez, and is part of a governance that includes the regional ministerial secretariat of cultures, the Fundación Imagen de Chile, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through ProChile and the Directorate of Cultural Affairs.
"It is a tremendous pride as a region that Santiago is the guest city at the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires. It is a way of uniting even more two brotherly peoples such as Chile and Argentina. It is also a tremendous honor because in this new version that is being launched today, Santiago will be the protagonist as the capital city. A metropolis that is becoming a cultural and artistic reference in all Latin America. From the Regional Government we are working to turn Santiago into a city brand at continental level, and this is a propitious occasion to do it together with outstanding Chilean writers. This is an invitation that will allow us to show the literary richness of our land, but also to promote other attractions that make Santiago an unmissable destination: mountains, vineyards, art, culture, gastronomy, tourism and great shows in one place", said the governor of the Metropolitan Region, Claudio Orrego.
For the Undersecretary of Culture and the Arts, Andrea Gutiérrez, "this is an opportunity to generate a very valuable space for cultural dialogue for the book sector because there is a presence of the entire literary ecosystem, from creation to marketing, which is essential for the growth and strengthening of this important sector that as a government we consider essential for people's lives. Undoubtedly, this Fair will be a space of rich conversation and encounter that in addition to the literary, will be enriched with a diverse cultural and artistic presence, which seeks to further strengthen the ties of cultural friendship between the two nations".
From Fundación Imagen de Chile, the executive director, Rossana Dresdner said that "it is an honor that our capital, Santiago de Chile, is the central guest at Fil Buenos Aires. For us, who have the task of telling Chile to the world, the story of the 8 axes that dress our presence at the Fair is especially powerful. As a Foundation, it seems to us that it expresses not only what Santiago is, but also what Chile is. That diverse Chile, often contradictory, but undoubtedly alive, traditional and modern, moderate and audacious, cosmopolitan and provincial, with roots in the earth and dreams in the sky".
Program
The literary program is articulated along eight axes that present the different political, social and cultural narratives that exist around the capital of Chile.
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 programming
Other activities will accompany this visit: music, cinema, exhibitions. They will take place in different spaces: at the stand corresponding to the invited city, at the Matta Cultural Center, which belongs to the Chilean Embassy and is located next to it, and at the Colón Theater.
On Wednesday, April 26 at 8 p.m. at the Colón Theater, Roberto Bravo, one of the most nationally and internationally renowned Chilean pianists in both popular and classical music, will perform. Meanwhile, on Friday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m., the exhibition on Enrique Lihn: "Phantom of Flesh and Bone" will be inaugurated at the Matta Cultural Center of the Embassy of Chile in Argentina.
The stand
The Pavilion of Santiago de Chile, guest of honor, was designed by architects Emilio Marín and Rodrigo Sepúlveda, current winners of Chile's last submission to the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The Pavilion is structured in components and/or architectural elements that are recognized from the physical geography and the natural and urban landscape of the city and are proposed in a space composed of a base and a suspended plane.
On the one hand, we can recognize in it, the slope that extends from east to west where its development is 3%, the hills, the mountain range and the valley as natural elements always present, our daily life and in the way of representing the city; illustrations, cartographies or a plan of its foundational checkerboard. There is, on the other hand, an interest in linking the elements of the landscape of the city of Santiago with an experience of the designed space and its aesthetics.
More information
Through the Santiago de Chile Ciudad Literaria website and the networks of the Undersecretary of Culture and the Arts @subseculturas on Twitter and Instagram.