Original article: Santiago: Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende inaugura nuevo ciclo con 3 exposiciones

Santiago’s Salvador Allende Museum Launches New Exhibition Cycle Featuring Three Captivating Shows

With three thought-provoking proposals exploring topics such as artistic creation, archives, and the history of its collection, the Museum of Solidarity Salvador Allende (MSSA) kicks off a new exhibition cycle on Friday, October 9. The opening includes From Here Space by Natalia Babarovic, which delves into the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of artistic production; We Chileans: Archiving to Imagine, featuring five artists and educators from the U. Diego Portales who examine the collection of publications by Quimantú through their own research; and Your Museum, Your Collection, a showcase of the MSSA Collection that traces the history and diversity of the museum’s heritage.

«Bringing together these three proposals allows us to demonstrate how the MSSA Collection and Archive continue to foster encounters, new interpretations, and creative processes,» states María José Lemaitre, the museum’s director.

She elaborates, saying, «We aim to provide the public with various entry points to the museum: discovering its works and stories, recognizing themselves within them, and posing new questions. This cycle expresses our commitment to sharing a heritage that belongs to everyone, enriched by research, artistic creation, and the experiences of our visitors.»

A Collection for All Chileans 

Comprising over 3,100 modern and contemporary artworks donated by more than 1,300 artists from around the globe, the Museum of Solidarity Salvador Allende’s Collection is a significant public asset.

To highlight this public heritage, the exhibition Your Museum, Your Collection will debut. It features a selection of 22 works inviting visitors to explore its diversity, history, and the various moments that have shaped its formation.

This exhibition is curated by Caroll Yasky, the museum’s Collection and Exhibitions Area coordinator, alongside Laura Ibáñez, a curatorial researcher in the same department.

Showcasing works by Joan Miró, Eduardo Vilches, Olga de Amaral, and others, the exhibit takes visitors on a journey through the plurality of the Museum of Solidarity Salvador Allende’s collection, featuring works created across different periods, locations, and styles.

Dialogues Around Painting

In From Here Space, an exhibition by Natalia Babarovic and guest artists, the focus is on the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of artistic work: the learning process, teaching, the life of the studio, emotional connections, and how images circulate and inspire new creations.

Funded by the National Fund for Cultural Development and the Arts, Regional Funding Area, 2026 Call for Proposals, this project is inspired by the book From Here Space by poet, art theorist, and philosopher Ronald Kay. Kay suggests that in Chile, landscapes were photographed before they were painted, positioning photography as a significant reference that has influenced the country’s pictorial outlook.

This reflection connects with Babarovic’s experience at Taller 916, a support space for visual creators that she co-directs with artist Christian Yovane.

Thus, the exhibition features works by Natalia Babarovic alongside pieces from artists associated with Taller 916, including Yovane, Antonia Teillery, and Jorge Caperan, as well as artist Francisca Chacón, each exploring diverse perspectives on painting and its expressions through PVC supports, installations, stop motion, textiles, and performance.

Additionally, a selection of MSSA Collection works chosen by the artists themselves establishes connections with the themes that permeate the exhibition. These pieces include works by Prunella Clough, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, Zdzisław Jurkiewicz, and Pepe Abad, which broaden the discourse to encompass other languages, materials, and approaches to imagery.

New Perspectives on Chilean Identity

Meanwhile, the group of artists and educators from U. Diego Portales, including Andrés Durán, Constanza Hermosilla Urra, N3T0, Cristián Silva-Avária, and Valentina Soto, will inaugurate the exhibition We Chileans: Archiving to Imagine.

This show draws inspiration from the We Chileans collection, a series of publications published by Quimantú that documented and showcased the customs, identities, and trades of the country’s inhabitants.

We Chileans is part of the MSSA Archive thanks to the project 50 Years of Quimantú: Heritage, Archive, and Identity, overseen by historians Flavia Córdova, Vicente Montecinos, and Almendra García-Huidobro, which enabled the museum to incorporate 41 of its original 49 volumes.

Through prompts for AI generation, artist Andrés Durán fictionalizes numbers from We Chileans that never came to exist, while Constanza Hermosilla investigates the links between labor force, trade, and extractivism, drawing on statistics related to fishers and coal miners.

Inspired by the issue covering Chilean legends, N3T0 creates a map that gathers speculative spaces and phrases encompassing popular myths, juxtaposing internet imaginations, ancient cultures, and scientific discourses.

Following this, Cristián Silva-Avária delves into instability, material memory, and Chile’s tectonic forces, addressing the seismic from the perspective of imagery and the layering of photographs.

Lastly, Valentina Soto explores Chilean flora, abortive plants, and women’s emancipation while investigating the relationships between nature, landscape, and its colonial constructions.

Cover Photo: Joan Miró, Untitled (1972)