Memory as Resistance: Perspectives on Chilean Visual Arts

Moderated by Catalina Herrera Acuña, Cultural and Press Attaché for the Embassy of Chile in the UK, we welcome a conversation with artist and visual communicator, Carola Ureta Marín, and independent curator and specialist in Latin American Art, Chantal Fabres, to discuss the role photography and art practices plays in creating and conveying Memory.

Speakers' biographies:

Carola Ureta Marín
Carola Ureta Marín is a visual communicator & designer based in London. Her practice aims to contribute to communication processes, to make them more effective and understandable for everyone. If an idea can be coded into texts and then translated into different languages… What if that same idea can also be translated into shapes, colours, temperature, music or movement among others?

In her career she has carried out projects linked to cultural development, artistic projects and historical research. In 2021, she was part of the curatorial team of the Chile Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2021, entitled ‘Tectonic Resonances’, which won the medal for the most outstanding overall contribution.

Her current work brings together her studies in Design, MA Cultural Management and MA Visual Communication. Her approach advocates constant experimentation, freedom of play through art&science, collaborative work, and the generation of projects that contribute to the improvement of democratic culture and environmental awareness. She considers Design as a powerful tool for encoding and decoding information to favour communication and understanding between human and more-than-human forces.

Catalina Herrera Acuña
Catalina is the Cultural and Press Attaché for the Embassy of Chile in the UK. She is a communications professional with experience in public engagement, cultural diplomacy, and cultural management. As part of her work in the Embassy, she has successfully led public and cultural diplomacy initiatives, including award-winning exhibitions, and partnerships with organisations such as the British Museum, Raindance Film Festival, Modern Art Oxford, London Design Biennale, and Hay Festival. She has also engaged with academic institutions, artists, and corporate partners, building collaboration strategies accordingly.

Before joining the Embassy, Catalina worked extensively in Chile with higher education institutions and with cultural organisations in both Chile and the UK, particularly in music and in the performing arts.

Catalina studied literature and journalism at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile, as well as an MA in Journalism. Catalina also holds an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from King's College London and is mother to two tiny Chilean Brits.

Chantal Fabres
In 2010, after completing a master’s degree at Sotheby’s in The History of Photography Chantal, who is part Chilean, went on to specialise in Chilean photography and joined the Latin American Photography Acquisition Committee (PAC) at Tate Modern in 2011/12. Chantal’s principal area of interest focuses on Chilean photography during the period of the 70s and 80s. She has spent the last 15 years researching and sourcing photographic works of unique importance that documented life under the Pinochet military regime. These Chilean artists —with little international exposure — played a critical role during the violent political upheavals. The wealth of diversity of expression in their work “[…] offers testimonies from behind the cracks, the persecution, the surveillance, and the suffocating impossibility of being different —as a principle of identity— in the face of overwhelming homogeneity.” (Kurt Petautschnig). In recent years, Chantal has begun a collaboration with Augusta Edwards Fine Art to promote photography from Latin America and Chile in particular.

Exhibitions Voces (Voices): Latin American Photography from 1980 to the Present. Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, UK (2015) Fragmented Dialogues: two Chilean artists at the turn of the 1980’s. Featuring the works of Mario Fonseca and Mauricio Valenzuela Austin Desmond Fine art, London, UK (2018) Writings on Photography “Trauma, Absence, and Memory: The Pinochet Legacy on Contemporary Chilean Art Photography”, Ocho Libros Editores in Santiago, Chile, 2012. “Documentary Photography,” contributing chapter to Photography-The Whole Story, edited by Dr. Juliet Hacking, Quintessence Publishing, London, UK, 2012.