Aravena visited Chile and began to research the street art movement there. “There was a lightbulb moment with a realisation of the whole muralist movement. I realised that we have this long history. When you speak to most people, they’ll say that it started in Paris in 1968 with the students doing stencils and writing poems. Then what we now call graffiti developed in the US in the 1970s. I was like, we were doing that in our country, a country that was very far away, separated by the mountains and the oceans. At the same time, there was also a mural movement in Mexico. So, Chile and Latin America were doing the same thing, using the street as a medium”.
Artists who came back to Chile in the early 1990s after the dictatorship brought their style and influences from diverse places such as Berlin, Paris and New York. In the film, Cekis, considered to be one of the founders of the graffiti scene in Chile, leads us down narrow alleyways in downtown Santiago, to where Chile’s first graffiti Hall of Fame once stood. Many of the early artists who went there to paint have since gone global and now exhibit their work to huge fame.
Aravena’s documentary showcases work that is taking place today, art which focuses on the many different political and social issues across Chile. We travel south to meet Aner and Tikay, a couple who use their art to paint the struggles of First Nation peoples. We head to Polanco, a working-class neighbourhood in Valparaiso, where a community graffiti project is transforming an area that rarely makes it into the postcards of the seaside city. Bisy, who leads the project, works within the community and uses art as a form of urban and social revitalisation, “graffiti is political and is activism,” she comments, “it’s a form of inclusion, prevention and also celebration”.
In 2019, an uprising known in Chile as the estallido social was triggered by university students in a protest against the cost of living, which then developed into wider demonstrations against the political and economic system that was put in place by the dictatorship, and which has led to huge inequalities throughout Chile.
“The film is about identity,” Pablo says, “The film was shot up until 2017 before the estallido social, where all these identities: native, feminist, regional in Chile just exploded and wanted to be heard. Artists were painting those voices on the walls before that, they were ahead of the game.”
Chile Estyle is a beautifully shot documentary that gives us a portrait of an artistic explosion happening across Chile, and which uses the street to tell the stories of a diverse nation.
Chile Estyle screenings:
Barcelona | Friday 13th September at Americat + Q&A with Dir. Pablo Aravena, Mono Gonzalez, Inti Castro
Bristol | Tuesday 15th October at Papaya Festival + Q&A with Dir. Pablo Aravena
Manchester | 6th November at Cultplex + Q&A with Dir. Pablo Aravena
More on the film here: https://www.chileestyle.com/
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Publish date : 2024-08-01 10:06:00
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