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Concha en ácido
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, MAC, Santiago de Chile, 2024.
Curated by Sergio Soto Maulén.



Colonia, Discarded mussel shells. Electronically controlled water recirculation and atomization system, 2024.







Installation view. Documentation by Felipe Ugalde.



                                                       
Pancore table, CNC carved wood with surface covered by scallops, abalones and mussels shells mosaic, fixed with a compound made of pulverized shells and agglutinant, painted glass.
                         





Colonia, Discarded mussel shells. Electronically controlled water recirculation and atomization system, 2024.








Pancore fragment #1, CNC carved wood with surface covered by scallops, abalones and mussels shells mosaic, fixed with a compound made of pulverized shells and agglutinant, painted glass.
















Pancore central fragment, shell mosaic over carved wood and glass—The surface treatment primarily features scallop shells sourced from landfills in northern Chile, particularly in Tongoy, where the culture of this particular mollusk sustains the town local ́s economy. In the open sea, scallops are de-shelled, and the discarded shells often accumulate on roadsides with trash of diverse origins, forming contemporary middens.













Concha en ácido.  Steel, heat oxides and patinas, magnetic dust, blown glass.




   


Vistas.  Stained glass in-lay in museum wall, viewers cutted in the shape of mussels shells. 


















Pancore (pata pinza).  Steel, heat oxides and patinas, haze.




 


Concha en ácido , installation view. Embedded abalone shells, lighting system, steel, blown glass, CNC carved wood with crushed shell ́s surface.








Pancore (fragmento concha) . Steel, CNC carved wood with surface covered by scallops, abalones and mussels shells mosaic fixed with a compound made of pulverized shells and agglutinant, pigments, painted glass, lead, metallic debris.






Tulipa. Steel, blown glass, lead, lighting system.






Conchal (misturas). Abalone shells in-lay over museum plinth, lighting system










Pancore (pata punta roma). Steel, heat oxides and patinas, magnetic dust and stained glass.






Pancore (pata punta roma). Steel, heat oxides and patinas, magnetic dust and stained glass.







Concha en ácido
Contemporary Art Museum Santiago, Chile.
from April 4th to September 8th, 2024.

“Concha en Ácido” intervenes four rooms at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago, tracing a path that follows the dissolution of materialities and logical paradigms of the present. Unfolding a narrative alongside images, surfaces, sculptures, and interventions that delve beyond the visible and the human domain, the exbhition invites us to consider our material interactions with bodies that exceed our own and, based on that experience, to imagine other scenarios, diluting our notions of perspective and human scale.

The exhibition, named after the essay “Your Shell on Acid: Material Immersion, Anthropocene Dissolves” by environmental humanities scholar Stacy Alaimo, proposes a material turn to consider the marine shells and carapaces that are currently suffering from disintegration due to atmospheric pollution and ocean acidification. Like our bodies or the neoclassical building that houses the museum itself, these shelters and their porosity are affected by the dissolution of hegemonic narratives and the political, social, emotional and environmental crises of our times. “Concha en Ácido” challenges our own corporality and way of inhabiting, searching for the dissolution of our protective layers, limits, and shelled individuality, to find new shelters that allow us to transform and coexist more attentively, drifting us into scenarios for material imagination.

Through this drift, we are lured to engage with alternative realities where terrestrial, aqueous, natural, and industrial boundaries blur into rare ensembles. In a call to reconsider our role as mere observers, the exhibition invites us to actively engage with the materials and narratives that affect us, becoming co-creators of a world where imagination and materiality intertwine. This immersion into the realms of material imagination offers a glimpse into a future where our understanding of self, environment, and existence is shaped not by rigid constructs but by the fluid exchange of collective visualizations.


︎ As part of the exhibition program was held the conversation “De Your Shell on Acid a Concha en ácido” with feminist philosopher Stacy Alaimo. Part of the activity can be revisited here.


Project supported by FONDART Artes Visuales | CNC Fabrication: Labomat, Department of Architecture, Federico Santa María Technical University.
Curator: Sergio Soto Maulén | Architect: Ignacio Lira Montes | Lighting Design: Pascual Mena Rodríguez | Illustrations: Simón Jarpa
Architecture Assistant: Javiera Paz Pino Gallardo | Production: Tarix Sepúlveda, Francisca Geisse - Curatorial Assistant: María Errázuriz Subercaseaux 
Electronic Development and Programming: Taller Dinamo – Gustavo Muñoz | Installation: Víctor Flores, Adolfo Bimer | Interns: Catalina Martínez, Paz Ponce Andrade, Carolina Tavolari Holzhauer, Emilia Astorga Calcagno, Amanda Romero Gili.

︎Artishock–Javier Gonzáles-Pesce  ;  ︎Relieve Contemporáneo –Sergio Soto Maulén ; ︎Daily Lazy