After a year of dramatic protests and demonstrations on the streets of the city, the future of Santiago, Chile, will be debated as part of Open House Worldwide Festival on the weekend of 14-15 November.
The discussion, curated by Open House Santiago, will bring together architects, activists and social leaders to discuss the state of the city today in the aftermath of a heavily contested year and the recent constitutional referendum.
The protests, which erupted in October 2019 following the rise in public transport costs, have consistently been centred around urban issues such as privatisation, ecology, monuments and safety in public spaces, access to education and social housing.
The participants include Doris González, a prominent activist working to democratise housing in Santiago. “For us, mobilisation has become essential to make visible a problem that was kept brushed under the carpet”, she explains in the discussion. “In the social outburst, the subjects who had been invisible until that moment, who were the peripheries, managed to reach a space in the centre of the city, also reconfigured or returned to the political scene.”
Sebastián Gray of the city’s Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile also joins the discussion. He explains that “what happened here on 25th October last year[…] was probably the largest gathering that has ever existed in the history of Chile”. He continues, “We have to heal a long-standing relationship between citizens and the city. A relationship that was lost, or diluted. I think that is what worries me at this time, whether citizens can accomplish that citizens take an interest in the city again.”
Other panellists include Valentina Saavedra, Lake Sagaris, Patricio Mora, Paula Sierralta and artist Claudio Caiozzi, better known as Caiozzama.
The discussion will be broadcast for free on the Open House Worldwide website at 13.00 UTC on Sunday 15th November (10.00 in Chile). The event is one of dozens of tours, talks, discussions and more taking place as part of the Open House Worldwide Festival, which begins at 00.00 UTC on Saturday 14 November.
- The full programme is available here.
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Open House Worldwide Festival 2020Type
EventWebsite
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November 15, 2020 01:00 PMUntil
November 15, 2020 04:00 PMVenue
YouTube