«Research trip to Chile and Argentina», Mateo Chacon-Pino

Between 29 of July and 14 of August, the Swiss based curator Mateo Chacon-Pino engaged on a research trip to Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and Antofagasta, in Chile, where the contemporary art festival «SACO9» takes place annually. The trip was a preparation for his curatorial project for the 2020 edition of this festival, which he did in collaboration with the Swiss artist Julian Charrière.

The leading question of the trip was the role of art as an informant of the relationship between humans and non-human entities – such as geography and environment -, understood here as a basis for social cohesion. Chile and Argentina are characterized by contrasting political and economic histories, which lay ground to the current preoccupations of their artistic production.

Mateo Chacon-Pino (Switzerland/Colombia, 1991) is a freelance curator based in Zurich. He studied Art History, Theory and History of Photography, and Modern German Literature at the University of Zurich, and completed the Curatorial Programme at De Appel in 2017. Chacon-Pino researches and writes on the ecologies of art & culture with a focus on social relations informed by the landscape, as well as research-based artistic practices and sustainability.