GHENT.- Unearthed Conversation presents new work by artists Francisca García (b. 1969, Santiago de Chile) and Mario Navarro (b. 1970, Santiago de Chile).

This collaborative project departs from the 1964 Chilean documentary film ‘Aquí Vivieron’ by Pedro Chaskel and Héctor Ríos, and from images taken by the NASA Perseverance Mars Rover on the planet Mars since 2021. Chaskel and Ríos’ documentary focuses on the excavation of material remains of the Chango culture at the mouth of the Loa River in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. In terms of surface and structure, the desert closely resembles the planet Mars. With this exhibition, García and Navarro connect these two landscapes and geographies, and use images to reflect on both the future and the past.

The Atacama is both the protagonist and the backdrop of this exhibition. Like the exhibition itself, the desert brings together stories and traces of forgotten pasts. These include archaeological finds from the Chango culture, the presence of some of the world’s largest telescopes, and the indelible scars of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

Using video, installation, sound, drawings and textile, García and Navarro invite us to think about how we might “converse” with a landscape. After all, every landscape bears memories of human activity, such as traces of colonization and political systems. In the Atacama Desert, the archaeological past is directly linked to humanity’s cosmic dream. The artists prompt us to reflect on how landscapes carry stories within them, and how the unspoken and the invisible shape humanity and how we think.

The exhibition’s visual richness encourages us to commemorate what we can no longer see, such as the vanished Chango culture or the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. This is not only about remembering, but also about critical reflection. Between the archaeologists’ simple hand tools and NASA’s cutting-edge equipment, Francisca García and Mario Navarro depict worlds that raise essential questions about events between life and death.

The two artists, who live and work in Santiago de Chile, share a critical and investigative interest in image, landscape, politics and utopias. García and Navarro each have their own individual artistic practices, but have been collaborating regularly since 2001, as for this exhibition.

Curator: Philippe Van Cauteren.