Victoria Vargas D.

Profile

I come from the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on the earth, there I grown up finding arrow-heads on the coast and seeinng ancient indigenous abstractions drawn in the mountains, in these manifestations I appreciate art and heritage as a constant in my life. As I saw it in the desert, I studied it in books and museums, while my experiences have led me to work in galleries, art fairs, non-profit art foundations and with international contemporary art agents in Chile, Brazil, United Kingdom, Austria and California in the United States,  in each experience I have seen the relationship between art and heritage rising in different ways, senses and forms.

 

Curatorial residencies

• Emergent Curators Retreat, Otis College of Art & Desing, Los Angeles California, US. 2018
• Curator's Agenda 2017, Block Frei, Vienna, Austria, 2017
• Habeas Data III, Curatoria Forense, Sao Paulo, Brazil 2016

Scholarships and Fellowships

• Chilean National Scholarship Program for PhD in a foreign country, 2018
• Otis Summer Residencies and Programs Fellowship, 2018

 

 

Research interests

In a text about Latin American poetry, the poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña compares a constellation in terms of Western and Andes culture. In the West, a constellation is constructed from star to star. While in the Andes, a dark constellation is the negative space between stars. My research is based on that negative space of creation & interaction between Contemporary Art and Heritage.

I'm interested in how arts and cultural backgrounds have an influence on what is perceived as ‘heritage’ and how the re-creation of some ‘heritage practices’ in contemporary arts can work as a tool and an activation strategy for its re-interpretation, adaptation and finally integration. In different words, how these two fields interact reciprocally between each other focusing me mainly Latin American contemporary art production. 

Qualifications

• BA Fine arts,with major in Theory and History of Art, Universidad de Chile, Chile
• Curating Diploma, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile
• MA Arts Management and Heritage Studies, University of Leeds, UK