Nitrate drawings in former nitrate mines in the Atacama Desert, ignited, in collaboration with Guillaume Othenin-Girard, 2022
-
The works of the cycle “Día y Noche (Nitrate Series)” result from an investigation of former nitrate mines in the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile. Despite their rather short period of operation, from around 1870 until the 1930s, these mines had an enormous and lasting impact on the landscape. And they are enmeshed in a long history of social injustice, socio-political unrest and violence. The work “Día y Noche” engages with the material and immaterial histories of five oficinas salitreras: Rica Aventura, Santa Isabel, Prosperidad, Buena Esperanza and Maria Elena. We investigated these mines 100 years after their closure and extracted small quantities of nitrate. We used it to create large-scale landscape drawings on site by reading and tracing existing traces. When set ablaze, these nitrate drawings created spaces of light that existed for a period of around 10 to 40 seconds. Embodying the history of nitrate as an explosive, they put the present condition of the mines into perspective and shed a yellowish light upon these extractive landscapes.
-
-
-
-
-
-