Patricio Salinas A

My work is conceived as a visual essay of existential nature. This means that the images articulate a narrative centered on the coordinates of my existence, addressing themes such as human fragility and uncertainty, collective and individual memory, the violence that permeates society, the search for unwritten history, and my own identity. My visual work is rooted in personal experiences, from which my reflections arise—thoughts that have evolved into a visual discourse. Through this, thematic axes emerge, giving meaning to my work, and I share these themes with experiences such as those of Walter Benjamin, including permanent uprooting, fracture, and uncertainty.

In my visual essay about Walter Benjamin, I do not approach his figure through his theoretical body but rather through imagination and fiction, exploring what might have been his vulnerabilities during his journey through the French-Catalan Pyrenees.

Additionally, my work on Atacama is a visual narrative based on my experience in the Chacabuco prison camp during Pinochet’s dictatorship. In my repeated visits to Chacabuco, I attempt to rescue objects, documents, and images. Through montage and juxtaposition, I create a constellation of these elements—a story about a time lost in memory. The montage leads to a decontextualization that breaks the linear timeline. I recover fragments of my written notes from the year I spent in Chacabuco, where I described how the vices of civil society were reproduced in the anomalous society of the prison, addressing class structure, the black market, and influence trafficking. This narrative does not conform to political correctness but delves into the human experiences of the prisoners, exploring their dilemmas and fears.

It is a visual work of fractured memory, where reality and fiction intertwine inextricably.