“THE TRANSITION FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY CORRESPONDS TO THE IMAGE THAT DISAPPEARS IN THE PRINTMAKING PROCESSES (ETCHING) AND THEN REAPPEARS (PRINTED ON THE PAPER). MY WORK CALLS TO THE NEED FOR A SEARCH FOR JUSTICE AND TRUTH, WHICH BY NO MEANS IS FINITE OR TERMINAL, BUT RATHER AN INITIATIVE THAT EXISTS IN AND WITH TIME."










THE-RIGHT-TO-KNOW. UNDER THIS SKY (room installation), 2016
Medium: Charcoal paintings on plastic
Dimensions: varied dimensions
Number of paintings: 1.079 (the missing to this date)
"The Right to Know. Under this sky" is an installation created during an artist residency at Art OMI, Ghent, New York, that addresses the military dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990, a regime with direct involvement from the U.S. government. The work draws from declassified documents provided by the National Security Archive as part of its Chile Project, which began in the late 1990s following the detention of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London on charges of crimes against humanity.
The installation fills the Omi International Art Center’s studio floor with the identities of the disappeared detainees, creating a visual map of portraits and blank spaces. These portraits represent the "memory available"—the persecuted individuals whose names have been shared by relatives and witnesses, arranged alphabetically. The installation was created over the course of one month, from June to July 2016, in upstate New York. Each day, a new painting was added, and left in place until the following day, allowing the passage of time to mark the charcoal with traces from heat, dust, and the presence of mosquitos.
Upon leaving the residency, all of the portraits were carefully collected and wrapped in small cardboard booklets, along with handwritten name tags. The intention was to reinstall the work as needed—allowing it to be shared in public spaces as a memorial and an invitation to reflect on the political history of a country still unable to fully exercise its "right to know."











