DIGNIDAD [2019]  Sponsor by the Government of Chile, FONDART grant, 2019

Medium: artist book with photo lithography, photographs, exhibition catalogues,QR code to the performances, and felt

Dimensions: 11 x 11 (closed); 30 x 11 + varied sized (open)

Binding Type: fold and unfold structure, handmade box with hot stamp and photography

Size: Edition of 50 + 2AP (with original lithographies, hand made box, gilding, exh. catalogues, and performance video, USB)

Collections: Iberoamerikanische Bibliothek, Berlin, GR; Library of Congress, Washington DC; Harvard University, Boston, MA ; Rutgers University, Special Collection; Association for Memory and Human Rights on Colonia Dignidad, Chile ; Princeton University Library, Special Collection ; UC Irvine, CA ; Watkinson Library, Trinity College, CT ; Special Collection of Delaware University, Private collectors.

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Collaboration with the National Archives of Chile, The Association of Memory and Human Rights Colonia Dignidad and the lawyer of the case Winfried Hempel (learn more about the project)

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“I define this artist's book as a political abstraction, which refers to the history of Colonia Dignidad through the construction and deconstruction of symbols of power. The spaces of segregation and repression can be imagined spatially and conceptually through the architecture of the bunkers of the Colonia Dignidad period. The physical transformation of the sculpture manifests as the history’s relevance and resonance of the ideologies evoked by symbols and spaces”

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Dignidad is an artist's book that documents a two years research-based project on Colonia Dignidad, which highlights the human rights violations committed in an isolated settlement established in the 1960s by Nazis in Chile before and after the dictatorship of Pinochet. Multiple crimes against humanity, including torture, execution, and child abuse were committed inside the enclave. Today the various criminal cases remain primarily unprosecuted and unresolved, due to the lack of political will, unresolved issues of legal jurisdiction, statute of limitations, the death of most of the principal offenders and the questionable legal status of the Colonia Dignidad which had been recently re-incorporated as an autonomous agricultural production center and renamed Villa Baviera. The project Dignidad has been exhibited national and internationally through a series of performances and installations since 2018 including the National Archive of Chile (SCL); Artist Space (NYC) ; Artist Television Access, ATA (SF,CA); The Meermanno Museum (ND) ; The Print Center (PA) and The Center for Book Arts (NYC)). The artist books gives account of this actions along with a historical and curatorial text of Chilean writer Matias Celedon in English and Spanish.