Global Patagonia: Belén Gache’s Nomadic Writings

Abstract

In 2007 Argentina and Brazil organized the First Biennial of the Ends of the World. Seeking to unite the Arctic and Antarctic poles through art, the biennial focused on themes connected to the global concerns of the twenty-first century: time and its metaphors, ecology, urban topographies, and virtual or possible worlds. More than 100 artists from twenty-five countries exhibited their works in Tierra del Fuego, the Beagle Channel, and Antarctica. Monuments in Tierra del Fuego such as the Old Prison, established in 1896 following Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon model, and the remains of San Juan de Salvamento’s lighthouse, built in 1884 on the inhospitable Isla de los Estados, were two central sites of several projects. Although located on the grounds of southern Argentina, the biennial promoted a transnational communication; a complex technological network connected, for instance, Ushuaia, the north of Canada, and the Finnish Lapland and, in different participating cities around the world, screens were installed for the passersby to watch some of its main developments. As one of the main goals was to promote a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, descendants of aboriginal cultures from the North and South Poles also partook in the artistic exchanges. By establishing transnational cultural exchanges, the artists involved in the project explored what Néstor García Canclini describes as the metaphors and narratives of a new “intercultural imaginary” present in global societies (2008, 62). In particular, this event examined how the cultures of globalization reflect transformations in time and spatial relations, and the importance electronic media bears in the construction of “imagined global communities” (65).