In this land, it is uncommon to find reflections such as Patricio Guzmán’s: “The indigenous people of Patagonia were the first and only maritime people of Chile. We Chileans today have lost that intimacy with the sea”. Perhaps Sagredo also questions our relationship with the coastline and the sea when he says: “A reflection of the persistence of the force of immobility attributed to the Andes as a metaphor of what is Chilean is the non-existence of the sea as a landscape. The sea, nature in constant movement, ever transforming itself due to the wind, light and other elements, is not considered part of our identity or our national representations”²

To what extent could this absence referred to by Rafael Sagredo and Patricio Guzmán be affecting us as a Chilean society?

Based on this question and the constant intangible movement between high and low tide, beginning an exploration between formal and sensible elements, between immovable and changing aspects, between our past and our present, as well as our communion with the native peoples and our present/future as a Chilean society.

MAREA is an analog photographic research and production looking to interpret our physical and sensory relationship with the coastal edge, a constant flux questioning our relationship with the forces of nature. Specifically, it seeks to document our changing and unfinished geography through the contemplative and temporal relationship of the sensory experience. Based on this record, we will develop an interpretation of our relationship with the sea, as if it were a visual or documentary archive of the coast from the warm and sandy ocean of the north, to the cold, rich and tumultuous sea of ​​the south of the world. Additionally, we will generate an exhibition and a publication of the documentation process that will enable us to question our past, present and future as a society: our blind spots, erasures and projections in a context of environmental, cultural and social instability.

MAREA is a relational and situational project, in which the process is characterized by a dialogue with the landscape, geography and territory, a methodology that will be part of each stage of the project, particularly for the development of the Photobook, the exhibition and the relationship with the general public. However, it is during the trip and the production of the photographic record that this relational and situational coupling becomes important within the creative process of experimentation and theoretical and practical conceptualization. The use of a 4x5 Large Format camera is a key and transforming element in relation to the landscape, geography and territory. This camera only allows you to take a single photograph in approximately 8 minutes, forcing you to connect and understand a place through acute observation before producing a single image. It is a meditative work that requires absolute concentration, persistence and patience. It is a moment when there is nothing else than the flow between what is being observed and what we are attracted to, the punctum of which Roland Barthes speaks of in "Camera Lucida".

MAREA is a journey of discovery that, from in situ research to discussions, invites us to interpret the movement of water, of becoming, of time, to imagine a Chile of the future, in which, based on the sea, we can reach our own horizon of the "promise of a future splendor".