Workshop

Images shot during two workshops, one with elementary and highschool students and the second with participants at M100 Cultural Center presentation and workshop. The images are uploaded to Flickr and from Flickr loaded into our maze.

As outsiders invited to participate in an exhibition in Santiago, Chile, we immediately sought to create a new project that would be specific to Chile (rather than present work previously executed). However as neither of us had been to Chile or had any direct relation to the country, we approached the project with an outsider perspective, but with a strong desire for exchange and learning.

As children of Reaganomics and the triumph of neoliberalism in the age of transnationalism, we recognized Chile as the model example of the positive effects of neoliberal philosophy upon a developing economy. And at a momeent of economic crisis, when unregulated markets are being questioned, it was this global branding of Chile that became our topic and Milton Friedman's phrase "Miracle of Chile" encompassed this reality. The phrase is commonly used outside of Chile, so the point of the workshops was to present this outside perspective and question the meaning of this phrase with Chileans.

Participants in the workshop paid audience to a brief economic lecture to summarize our perspective. A portion of the lecture is included below. The lecture lead to discussion and finally we asked the participants to go for a walk through the city and document their view of the Miracle of Chile in the civic space. The goal is to capture a sense of how ideology inscribes itself into the public space.

Following the walk, participants returned to upload their images to the project's Flickr account. The images are used to populate a virtual maze that is presented in the museum and online. Below is content from the presentation.

A Brief Economic Timeline


Disparity Between Wealthy and Poor In Chile

Source: World Bank, Development Research Group. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see PovcalNet.