Chile

Santiago 

Lafat Bordieu

 independent art scene can be hard to identify, and harder to define. From the north to the south, pinpointing a centralised identity is a near impossible task.

Conventional art galleries and art schools tend to be associated with elites able to pay, rather than a genuine reflection of a living art scene. That's why independent artist Lafat Bordieu recommends that visitors look to the streets rather than any established galleries. 

“In Chile and in South America, there isn’t as much direct support for art. That creates other kinds of community networks, self-managed and self-organised," he says. "The things I do don’t go through a publisher, institutions or any bureaucracy. They’re made by myself, created by myself, printed at home, and sold at fairs.”

Below he talks through the best places to find genuine spots that reveal 

 independent art and culture—which, on the surface, can be hard to find, but when you know where to look, it's a scene that's truly overflowing.  

This is where I used to come and sell on the street, right on that corner. If the police came you’d go to Bellas Artes. There weren’t as many police as there are now. 

An emblematic place. There are people selling art in spots like Galería La Curtiembre and Factoría Santa Rosa. I mostly move in the street or in festivals, but it's where artistic things are happening, for sure.

An independent place, run by people who are interested in books. It has a good selection of titles.  Books are difficult to make a business out of; whoever decides to work in this industry is a form of resistance to a certain digital era, it’s a way to reaffirm the physical and tangible. Anyone who starts a business with books is excellent to me.

Gabriela Mistral Cultural Centre, GAM hosts various cultural fairs and exhibitions. It is a bureaucratic institution, but even so, it offers a varied mixture of things. What I most like is that it's a public space—where people can do there own thing; dance, sell, whatever, go to the library. It's an open community space, which is the main difference between a cultural centre and a purely artistic one. 

There’s a street market with a lot of secondhand items; people selling vegetables next to people selling art and other things. Another incredible place.

There’s a mix between generations that go to this bar, and you always find interesting people, there’s good music playing and it's relatively affordable.

I like to draw here because it’s relaxing. There are old museums, families on day trips, drunks, people BBQing, me drawing, dogs in the lake. I feel that it’s very Chilean, it’s a collage. You take things from here and there and put them together like cutouts—that’s my style too, mixing things.

A space that holds activities, with a genuine interest in supporting local and interdisciplinary art: vinyl records, books, and souvenirs.

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