Recibimos durante febrero 2019 a la artista alemana Rebecca Ann Tess, en el MAM Chiloé, para desarrollar el proyecto: Alpha++ Models / Chicago Boys.
Durante la residencia en Chile, he estado trabajando en un capítulo adicional de «Modelos Alpha ++», un trabajo en progreso que consta de más de 100 fotografías tomadas desde el 2012 en varias megaciudades y sus alrededores en todo el mundo, mirando hacia atrás en el momento en que Chile fue tratado como un banco de pruebas de conceptos neoliberales y estudiando los impactos actuales de los Chicago Boys. El título Alpha ++ se refiere inicialmente a la calificación más alta posible de una ciudad global en la competencia internacional entre tales ciudades. En el centro de este proyecto, se encuentra la arquitectura repetitiva de gran altura de las megaciudades y su área ajardinada circundante, que se toma como caso de estudio de estructuras de poder en la era neoliberal.
Más sobre Rebecca y su trabajo en VIMEO o en la web de la Galería Philipp vonRosen
PROYECTO: ALPHA++ MODELS – Chicago Boys / During the residency in Chile I’ve been working on an additional chapter of »Alpha++ Models« – a work in progress consisting of over 100 photographs taken since 2012 in several mega-cities and their outskirts around the world – looking back at the time when Chile was treated as a test-bed of neo-liberal concepts and studying the todays impacts of the Chicago Boys. The title Alpha++ refers initially to the highest possible rating of a global city in the international competition amongst such cities. In the center of this project is the repetitive high-rise architecture of mega-cities and its surrounding landscaped area, which is taken as case studies of power structures in the neo-liberal age.
For the chapter »Alpha++ Models / Chicago Boys I spent time in Chiloé to look at alternative forms of way of living. Thereby I was particular interested in learning more about the Minga – to see how the traditions of communal work are still finding it’s place in a world which is more and more shifting to a capitalist environment. With the support of the anthropologist Catalina Rojas, I got in contact with people of Chiloé to listen to their perspectives on how life has changed since the introduction of the neo-liberal concepts in Chile. During my research I came across the bridge construction in Castro, which was planned to connect two hillsides by a large bypass road crossing through a millennium forest and an almost untouched riverbank. The project came on hold because of the finding of thousand-year-old indigenous remains. The current state of this site shows the brutal conflict zones between the matters of the locals – the strong impact on flora and fauna and the purity of water as well as the interest of the tourism economy to connect places on the margins. Besides images of the unfinished bridge I’ve been taking nature photographs in Chiloé, which will build an antipode to the slick deathlike images of todays capitalist cityscapes.
* Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe
ARTISTA: REBECCA ANN TESS / (*1980) is an artist based in Berlin, Germany. Tess studied fine arts at the University of the Arts, Berlin, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London as well as at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, where she graduated in 2009. In 2011 she received the Villa Romana Prize. During a two years assistant professorship at the photography dept. at Chung-Ang University in South Korea, Tess had the time to study mega cities, it’s architecture, the sociopolitical order as well as the influence of implemented smart technology on the city life. In her current project »Alpha++« she takes high-rise architecture and global cities in general as case studies for power structures in the neoliberal age with means of photography and video.
