GREETINGS FROM LA CAPILLA AZUL | |
|
Hello Dan,
Thank you for taking a look at the February 2025 newsletter for La Capilla Azul, an independent community-based exhibition space located in Contuy, a rural community within the Chiloé Archipelago, just off the coast of Patagonian Chile, where it is currently peak traveling time for summer vacations
I’m writing this newsletter from our administrative office in snowy upstate Glens Falls, NY, which is slowly emerging from a long, cold winter. I’ve been thinking, as I often find myself doing this time of year, of the harsh weather happening in Chile as everywhere else, and about how such extremes link us, even from halfway across the globe. I personally find it helpful to imagine that factors typically thought of as keeping us farther apart from one another, like distance, can serve today as the basis for bringing us together, as anybody who found themselves making the most of long-distance video communications during the Covid-19 pandemic can attest. If we feel the need to make and sustain this level of communication with others, there’s literally nothing to keep us from doing so.
People sometimes ask me why I’ve dedicated myself to an extended curatorial endeavor that’s located thousands of miles away, with the implied follow-up question about why this is something they should support. For me, the most clear-cut response is that La Capilla Azul came into existence after years of exploring the cultural life of Chiloé and trying to discern what would be the most favorable contribution a U.S.-based curator could make to the rich local panorama of artistic and artisanal creattion. It was only after those other pieces fell into place that the further implications of Capilla Azul started becoming clearer: what it might become, not just in terms of its scale, impact, and educational role within the immediate community, but as a template for developing a curatorial methodology for work that responds directly to a non-urban environment.
This issue is mostly dedicated to finishing the story of my own engagement with Chiloé, as well as giving the floor to Pablo Carvacho, who as the head of Comarca Contuy, is the co-founded of Capilla Azul and Chairman of our Board. As I’ve explained in other contexts, it was Pablo’s vision for his family’s lodge that provided a ready-made context for what we’ had been hoping to accomplish by opening an exhibition space. That space could have been in a more urban environment, and it could have been more autonomous, but instead we learned that joining forces with a family that had already made significant progress at integrating themselves into the local community was the best way to make our case for developing a platform to showcase the unique collective genius of Chiloé and its people.
- Dan Cameron
| |
ALFREDO JAAR'S and OSVALDO GÜINEO's ‘ABSENCES’ ON VIEW THROUGH MAY 4 | | |
Along with Osvaldo Guineo’s installation of current textile works, NYC-based Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar’s outdoor project for La Capilla Azul has drawn interested viewers to Contuy since its opening on January 18. | |
RAQUEL AGUILAR: FROM CAPILLA AZUL TO GALERIA PATRICIA READY | | |
|
La Capilla Azul is proud to announce the exhibition Caicoi, of recent sculpture by Raquel Aguilar, opening on March 13 at Galeria Patricia Ready in Santiago. The exhibition centers on works commissioned by and presented at Capilla Azul in 2024, as part of Somos Raices. Key to the presentation is the Caicoi, a three-meter-high forest woman whom the artist created entirely from the quilineja root that she harvests from Chilote forests, applying ancestral practices of weaving to transform them into sculpture. This will be Aguilar’s first exhibition in Santiago, and the first Capilla Azul alumna to receive national exposure.
Somo Raices, an exhibition of new work presented in collaboration with Voluspa Jarpa and invited guest Violeta Monyneaux, remains on view through February 28 at CAMM (Centro de Arte Molino Marcher) in Puerto Varas, Region Los Lagos.
| |
MY CHILOÉ STORY, PART TWO | | | |
|
In the first part of My Chiloé Story last November, I tried to describe the circumstances that brought me to this corner of the planet in 2015, and in particular why I began dedicating myself to developing a curatorial project that matched the conditions I found there. Because I’d become accustomed to thinking of curatorial projects as having a distinct beginning and end, it took some years for me to understand that a project which flourished and faded in a few months would not necessarily be a positive contribution to the culture of the Chiloé Archipelago. Instead, I was encountering a pretty straightforward situation in which the sheer volume of creative ingenuity and artistic skill existed in inverse proportion to the number of venues whose mission was to showcase the results of that talent. | |
|
At the same time, there was a vibrant creative community in this environment, one that thrived on a sense of cultural identity that is fairly characteristic of most island societies, particularly in the case of Chiloé. That sense of community was amplified when, first with artist Gianfranco Foschino and later co-curator Ramón Castillo, I met the people behind Comarca Contuy, on its surface a rustic lodge with strong artistic leanings, run by city transplants who a decade ago dedicated themselves to an elevated vision of rural hospitality. But their commitment to their neighbors soon went much further, extending to the artistic education of children in the community. This possibility has inspired Pablo and Marcela to activate a rural network of artistic opportunity by way of artists workshops, programs by visiting educators, and art-based events centered on the there rural schools in nearby Contuy, Agoní and Paildad.
The Capilla Azul was so named because that’s what everyone always called it, and from the day of its purchase, the little wooden church was envisioned as the exhibition component of Comarca Contuy’s educational outreach. The day its current fate was decided, in March of 2022, Ramón and I had been enjoying a cup of tea with Pablo in his darkroom, wondering aloud about the form our hypothetical future exhibition space would take. Following some discussion about a recently visited building in Dalcahue that was beautiful but large and cumbersome, and needed plenty of work, Pablo mentioned as a casual aside that the little blue chapel was available. Within minutes the three of us were working out the restoration/restoration budget, which came to about US $12,500. Although it would be next to impossible to raise that sum within Chile, if we used crowdfunding out of the US, it was definitely achievable.
At first it sounded counterintuitive, but over time many of the downsides began to start to seem like advantages. Some of the more potent questions about art today revolve around the principle of community, and the hamlet of Contuy is home to three hundred families, our neighbors, most of whom have known the building all their lives, from its previous incarnation as the local Catholic church (another was built in its place).
An equally pressing theme in critical discourse today is about sustainability and our behavior towards this planet, and when one is working in a rural environment defined by a culture infused with ancestral knowledge, a very different ethic of conservation and land use applies.
| |
Aerial view of Comarca Contuy & Paildad River estuary with three rural schools | |
|
Finally, the much broader question of what role art can play in envisioning how we wish to live tends to emerge gradually from the rest. Since it was first incorporated as a Chilean not-for-profit sociocultural organization, Comarca Contuy has embodied the values of sustainability, neighborliness, sharing, and interdependency that provide the basis for Capilla Azul’s mission and curatorial objectives. Not surprisingly, our by-laws are close to mirror images of each other, because in its totality the Comarca is as genuine a manifestation of community values as I had yet come across in my ramblings, and therefore a long-term project that was eminently worth throwing in with.
The role Capilla Azul plays within Comarca Contuy’s vision is to develop a curatorial vision founded on the premise that the artists and artisans of Chiloé are fully as accomplished, and their work as worthy of attention, as their counterparts in the rest of the country and world. In order for the program to reflect that, each exhibition is organized to convey a principally Chilote artistic character. What this has meant so far is that our six exhibitions have consisted of at least half Chiloé-produced work, if not more. When invited artists are brought in from outside the region, it’s usually to collaborate directly with their Chilote counterparts, creating new work based on a shared dialogue. Sometimes, as with the case with Alfredo Jaar in the current Ausencias/Absences, a new work comes into being, to be shared with the public long after the exhibition ends.
| |
Curatorial Workshop at Escuela de Contuy, 2023 | |
|
Just to be clear, I didn’t come to Chiloé ten years ago in order to trigger a paradigm shift in terms of my own curatorial practice. What I was looking for was a situation in which my ability to respond genuinely and uncompromisingly to a given set of circumstances would determine the outcome. During the research visits I made between 2015 to 2019, the challenge became less about finding the way to adapt my ideas to the reality of Chiloé than to ask myself what it was I really wanted. That line of exploration is what inspires me to ask you today to be part of the Capilla Azul experiment in community, artistic creation, and sustainable values.
I think it’s important that when a combination of factors come together that produce their own uniquely inspiring dynamic, it’s important to let that fusion thrive. Capilla Azul is free to operate as the kind of independent exhibition space it is because we’re located in a rural sector of a large island off the Patagonian coast of Chile, and even though we might have been able to accomplish what we’ve managed to in only two years were we in another remote corner of the planet, with an entirely different set of local affiliations. It works because of who we are, doing what we can to develop a curatorial vision for the precise geo-cultural environment where we are fortunate to have found ourselves.
| |
VISION AND MISSION OF LA CAPILLA AZUL | | |
Opening of ‘Ausencias’ with friends and neighbors, January 18, 2025, all photos by Helena Fitzek. | |
|
In the heart of the Chiloé Archipelago, La Capilla Azul stands as a beacon of art, thought and community, a space where the boundaries between the local and the global dissolve through the encounter between creators and audiences. We aspire to establish ourselves as a cultural reference in Chiloé, in Chile and internationally, by promoting an operational model that intertwines memory, territory, and contemporaneity in constant dialogue.
Our aim is to be a space where culture is built from the community outwards, nourished by its voices, knowledge and traditions, while also opening up to new perspectives and artistic languages that broaden the horizons of thought and sensitivity. We want Capilla Azul to be a place where art is not only contemplated, but lived, questioned and transformed, offering isolated communities high-level artistic and educational experiences, with the certainty that beauty, knowledge and creativity are universal rights.
Our vision is that of a space that hosts exhibitions, residencies and meetings, but also becomes a laboratory for new forms of creation and learning, where curatorship is understood in its broadest sense: as the art of connecting, caring and telling stories that resonate in the present and project possible futures. We want every person who walks through our doors to share the sense that art has the power to transform their world.
| |
|
La Capilla Azul is a cultural project with deep roots in the Chiloé Archipelago, while at the same time offering a potential model for global reach. We are dedicated to generating significant artistic experiences that emerge from encounters between local artists and creators from other territories, promoting a constructive dialogue between the traditional and the contemporary, the insular and the worldly. In this spirit, our exhibitions are built on the basis of curatorial duos, in which artists from the archipelago share space with creators from outside, many of them internationally renowned. This model not only strengthens the local art scene, but also opens paths for exchange and mutual learning, enriching the cultural narratives of the region and placing Chiloé on the map of contemporary art.
La Capilla Azul seeks to bring art to the archipelago and to project its artists beyond its borders. Recognizing the talent of Chiloé is essential to our mission, so we facilitate the circulation of local artists to other exhibition spaces in the region, and in Santiago. In this way, Capilla Azul strengthens their careers and expands their networks of support for their work, consolidating a circuit of visibility for the island's artistic production.
Education is fundamental to our work. Through our curatorial school, we work with the schools of the Paildad estuary so that children and young people take ownership of art not merely as spectators, but as creators and critical thinkers. We believe in the importance of cultural mediation as a bridge between studios and communities, and for that reason each exhibition at the Capilla Azul is accompanied by dialogue and learning processes that allow all visitors to relate to art in a close and meaningful way. Our commitment to education and access to knowledge extends to our future community library, a living space where books are windows to other worlds and reading is understood as an act of encounter and transformation. In a territory where access to cultural resources remains limited, the community library seeks to become a refuge for curiosity and critical thinking.
Each of our projects is guided by a deep respect for the natural environment and cultural wealth of Chiloé. Aware that insularity is both a challenge and a strength, we work with the conviction that geographical distance should not be a barrier for access to culture and knowledge. Therefore, we strive to offer activities and spaces with high standards of infrastructure and content, ensuring that those who participate in our initiatives find a transformative experience in them. La Capilla Azul is more than a cultural space — it is a commitment to art, to education and to the community. It is a project that grows with each artist, each child, each reader and each person who decides to be part of this story. Because we believe that art has the ability to transcend time and space, and that its impact can change lives and strengthen territories, we work every day to ensure that this dream continues to spread its roots.
Pablo Carvacho, Comarca Contuy
| |
Opening of ‘Ausencias’ with friends and neighbors, January 18, 2025, photo by Helena Fitzek. | |
Please Support La Capilla Azul!
In closing, I’d like to remind our readers that nothing that we have accomplished to date — which includes the complete restoration of the 19th century wooden chapel, its transformation into an independent exhibition space, and the six exhibitions that we have presented — would have been possible without the support of the more than one hundred and forty individuals who have contributed to our GoFundMe campaign since March 2022. We are forever grateful to those who have generously supported us to date, but the truth is that even though we receive no public funds and our principal staff works on a voluntary basis, we still need to pay for artists’ honoraria, travel, art transport, printing and graphic design for all of our projects, so your support is still very much needed.
La Capilla Azul is a public charity registered in the US under the 501c3 provision of the U.S tax code, which permits tax-deductible contributions for educational purposes, within the limits provided by the U.S Treasury.
| |
Alfredo Jaar, Ausencias, 2025, La Capilla Azul, photo by Helena Fitzek | | |
|
Capilla Azul is part of Comarca Contuy, Queilen, Chiloé, Region Los Lagos, Chile | | | | |
