Starting next week, Chillán will become the headquarters of mural art. The commune will host the Contemporary Art, Archive and Preservation Seminar at the Municipal Cultural Center, between December 12 and 13, an event called “Muralism: contemporaneity, contingency and challenges”, with special focus on the recovery of the mural “Beginning and End ”, by Chilean artist Julio Escámez, located in the Municipal Council Chamber.
“It is a privilege to be the only regional city that will host this seminar and national and international artists for the first time. Throughout its history, the capital of Ñuble is the cradle of great people and has welcomed various creators and intellectuals, for this reason we invite the community to participate in the activities programmed by our heritage unit,” highlighted Mayor Camilo Benavente. .
It is in connection with the unveiling of the mural that the Heritage Unit, dependent on the municipal Directorate of Culture, begins a series of actions with the aim of highlighting mural art as an artistic expression that generates identity in the immediate present, inviting understand heritage as a set of practices linked to our past, but also to our present.
The recovery of the mythical mural created by the visual artist Julio Escámez, becomes a transcendental milestone for mural art in the city of Chillán, enriching a tradition of murals in Ñuble that begins with the historical monument “Death to the Invasor” by David Alfaro Siqueiros and the murals of Xavier Guerrero, both located at Escuela México. After being hidden for 50 years, the recovery of the Beginning and End mural enhances the objectives proposed by UPA.
Seminar
This year’s version, to be held for the first time in Chillán, is part of the 50 years of the Coup d’état in Chile, thanks to the Executive Secretariat of Visual Arts, Department of Arts Promotion, National Center for Conservation and Restoration (CNCR) of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, who have developed this seminar in the city of Santiago for more than a decade, and that, thanks to the collaborative work between the CNCR and the UPA, it has been decided to bring this activity to the region, for the first time, with our city as its headquarters.
In this context, the Ñuble Regional Seremi of Cultures, Arts and Heritage and the Ñuble Regional Directorate of the National Cultural Heritage Service join in to organize this important event for art in the city. At the same time, the Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chillán collaborates as a local actor and will present the case of the recovery of the Julio Escámez mural, as part of the seminar programming.
The meeting seeks to stimulate reflection on the challenges of preserving murals, the regulations for interventions of this nature in public spaces, new trends in contemporary muralism and the role of the archive as a primary source for research. The event will have the participation of national and international agents linked to muralism, who will discuss identity, public space, encounters and tensions between heritage and street artistic manifestations.
Citizens are invited to participate on December 12 and 13 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Municipal Cultural Center of Chillán, located at Herminda Martín #579. Also during the afternoon, between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., heritage tours will be held at key points in the city.
