The meeting reunited sculptors and painters from around the world in the trans-andean capital where the topic of the event was the pandemic.

In times of confinement and prolonged quarantines, Latin American art continues to continue to walk. A group of sculptors and painters organized to hold the First International Symposium of Sculptors and Virtual Painting “Pan de Mi Arte” in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The theme of the symposium was the health crisis and the pandemic that societies are going through worldwide. The artistic event was attended by 30 sculptors and 35 painters from 20 countries of the planet, three of them are teaching artists from the Universidad de Los Lagos.

The modality of the contest was virtual and each artist had to present in 8 days the process of their artistic creation, on the last day they presented their work and the arguments that support it. The professors of the Universidad de Los Lagos who were part of the symposium were the sculptor Pía Shulze, the painter Carolina Strmelj and the sculptor, Orlando Vidal.

Pía Shulze, professor of the Department of Humanities and Arts and visual artist, was who received the invitation to participate in the symposium. “The invitation came because I had participated in previous symposia, so the network of work with the artists of Argentina was formed. And I shared the invitation with my other Visual Arts colleagues. The production of the event evaluated our artistic curriculums and three professors of ULagos were selected”, said the sculptress.

For her part, Carolina Strmelj, professor and painter, pointed out that her creation called “Journey” has the virtue of moving the viewer in a transit through our interior in times of confinement. “It’s an imaginary journey that we can have and should have under this lockdown. I worked on acrylic on canvas with mixed techniques on canvas. Is a boat that represents the journey of an abstract vision, flat superimposing the colors and managing to move the senses and take them to other spaces”.

Orlando Vidal, professor and sculptor, explained the creative process in times of confinement. “the pandemic granted times that did not exist before. Then it allowed me to get closer in my creative process. The moment of living locked up, of how new relationships are raised, in linking ourselves digitally and spatially valuing physical contact. We no longer have it so easy, that sum resignified we linked digitally and value physical contact, since we do not have it so easy, that had an impact on rethinking our relationships, “concluded the sculptor.

The professors presented their work on the eighth day of celebration. Although they start with a pre-established idea, over time the work mutates into a re-figuration, where the artist finds new lights that lead to a new creation. This is confirmed by Shulze. “As a sculptor it is a challenge to create a work in eight days, starting the project with a sketch, which aspires to the communion of the idea with the form and its translation into the defined materials, in my case stone and wood. The first day materials and drawing are presented with the message you want to express, and the work evolves coming to life in the matter, at the end on the last day, with physical exhaustion one feels satisfaction for the concrete message, feeling grateful for the positive reviews of peers and congratulations from the community, from people who appreciated the creative process, where 52 countries participate, where one is nourished and learns from peers“, concluded the ULagos professor.

The work and their interpretations.

The work of Shulze, entitled «Ascendant», is a granite stone sculpture and wood, of dimmensions 45 x 130 x 30 cm. The figure is a monument to the family, to the human beings who descend and educate the children of the technological future or the uncertainty of pandemics, it is a sculpture to reflect on the future and to inherit human values of respect, care and friendship. The wood interprets the symbolization of the Mapuche worldview of Rehue, the ladder where spirits descend and ascend, to raise consciousness.

In reference to the work of the sculptor Orlando Vidal, it is a wood sculpture of Larch on a wooden base. Its dimmensions are 49x 36x 9 cms. His technique is sculpture in direct carving. Its name is Fragmentation, which evokes the fracture of our way of relating and reveals the new possibilities of relating in times of confinement and pandemics. 

On the other hand, the creation of the visual artist, Carolina Strmelj, called “Viajes”, dedicated to the contingency of the Covid under this confinement, is a painting in mixed technique on canvas, which seeks the allusion to the imaginary journey of creation in confinement, based on imaginary trips made in the studio and in the southern landscape as a conductor in a constantly moving boat.  Its dimmensions are 1.50 x 1.50 cm in mixed media on canvas. 

It is necessary to emphasize that the Universidad de Los Lagos has positioned the Department of Humanities and Arts in the regional events and the development of culture and the arts. The career of Pedagogy in Arts has worked in the diffusion of its activities, in addition to improving its operating conditions, strengthening the academic body and increasing the research and artistic extension.

At the end of the exhibition, viewers and virtual visitors learned the details of each work from the mouths of its creators. One of the objectives of the event is to recreate and reflect on these new virtual spaces where the meeting of virtual citizens achieve reflection on the pandemic that affects the whole world.

Finally, the steps to be followed by the collective of artists is to generate a catalog of Works presented at the symposium and disseminate through digital galleries the different creations made by international artists and the Universidad de Los Lagos.