Toltén wetlands

Located in the southwest of the Araucanía region, the main towns of the commune are Nueva Toltén ( commune seat ), Villa Los Boldos and Queule. According to its geographical background, the commune has an area of 860.4 km2, immersed in the Coastal Mountain Range, its main feature is the Toltén River. It is bordered to the north by Teodoro Schmidt, to the east by Pitrufquén and Gorbea, to the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the south by the Los Ríos Region.

Toltén, was intensely affected by the 1960 tsunami and is also one of the most impoverished communes in the country (UFRO, 2019), but, nonetheless  it safeguards a space with the potential of restoration, the possibility of protecting and conserving biodiversity, thus strengthening the social welfare that a healthy ecosystem delivers to its inhabitants, especially when the commitment of its communities for the environment is expressly manifested.

About the artists

• Gonzalo Castro-Colimil | Born in the city of Temuko, Wallmapu in 1986. Castro-Colimil graduated as a Visual Artist in 2015 from Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago. He currently lives and works in Temuko, addressing concepts of identity and territory that stand out as key characteristics when identifying his works.

Founder of  the C.O.A (Artistic Operations Coordinator), director of the residency and territorial experience circuit “Ë F A Trawün”, which explores the territory, its meanings reflecting on the territorial transformation and geopolitical conflicts in various localities of the southern cone, fundamental axis of his works. He cultivates a state of active research with visibility of problems from an artistic practice and viewpoint, becoming aware of the role of the visual arts as a critic.

• Daniel Lagos | Is an engraving artist, he has a degree in art from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and teaches at the Art Institute of the same university. He studied at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, where he participated in the engraving workshop taught by the renowned master Alfonso Alvarez. His subject matter deals with the rural/urban landscape and cultural heritage through possible displacements from traditional engraving.

Lagos, investigates and seeks to give value to various plastic artists little known in Chile, such as Celia Leyton, Manuel Quevedo and Leonor Barnert. All of them linked to the Academy of Fine Arts of Temuco as a fundamental place of growth and coexistence with the art of southern Chile.

• Javiera Delgado | Anthropologist from Universidad Católica de Temuco, graduated in Visual Anthropology and Audiovisual Media in Social Research and candidate for a Master’s degree in History of the Present Time at Universidad Austral de Chile. She is currently in charge of content at Editorial Pululo. Professionally, she has worked in various activities of valuation and protection of intangible cultural heritage and linked to formal and non-formal educational contexts. Her trajectory is related to the production of scientific and social knowledge as well as to social engagement, awareness and participation in general.

• Jorge Olave | Visual artist. Visual anthropology, sound art, electroacoustic composition and sociology of the Image graduate. He has fractured the way we listen -or feel- sounds, decoding wild and frontier places.

• Gina Negroni Ceramic artisan. Ceramist with more than 10 years of experience, who grew up learning about clay thanks to her father. This, added to her studies of art and engraving at Universidad de Concepción, has allowed her to develop her work in high temperature ceramics in two main lines: a functional line, in which she applies design, and another artistic area, focused on material exploration and creation of engobes and glazes.

• Elizabeth Rodríguez | Visual artist born in Santiago de Chile (1987). Visual arts graduate from Universidad Andrés Bello, specializing in sculpture, Rodríguez later on went to study visual arts pedagogy at the same university and works as a teacher of visual arts.

She works self-taught in curatorial and cultural management projects. Creator of the 2012 oil painting workshop “Forma contra forma” that continues to this day, expanding to the communes of Quilicura, Paine, San Bernardo, and now in the commune of Teodoro Schmidt.

She teaches classes in schools and cultural centers, and outdoor projects, focused on the observation of the natural environment which later finalizes with an exhibition of the vision of the landscape where each community is located.

She currently resides and works in the Teodoro Schmidt Commune of the Araucanía Region.