María Verónica San Martín

Dignidad

Dignidad is a performative work based on the archive of a hidden community founded in 1961 by former Nazi officers in Southern Chile currently held at the National Archive of Chile. Colonia Dignidad was an isolated colony characterized by torture, execution, and child abuse and a site for clandestine operations of the Pinochet regime and the CIA. Based on thorough archival research, including unreleased audiotapes from 1978, María Verónica San Martín interprets the colony's violent culture by restaging spaces of segregation and repression through moveable metal sculpture activated through choreography. Deconstructing symbols of power, the work evokes the architecture of bunkers and cells, thereby embodying the political machinery uncovered within the archive.

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*This performance took place on December 6th 2020