I grew up in between Spain and Chile but for this project, I chose to compare Santiago (Chile) to New York City.
I chose the sense of sight for this bridge project. I have been a painter for a long time, so colors are a big part of my life. I always look at things differently than others and most of my memories have something to do with visual experiences. In the seminar paper, I start by comparing the basic colors of the flags of the two countries because It called my attention that they are the same, red, white and blue. In Chile, everyone associates the colors with the national flower, the snow of the Andes and the Chilean skies. They have a more visual meaning rather than a symbolic one. Then, I compare the colors that you see every day in the two cities, I try to represent what my memories of the two places would look like in terms of the different colors you can see, for example, the colors you can see in the sunset. Also, I contrast the thing that represents Chile for me, The Andes and what would be it’s equivalent in New York City. From anywhere in Santiago you can see the beautiful mountains in the East of the country, it used to be a way for me to be able to always know where I was and in what direction I was heading, now I find myself doing the same thing but with the giant buildings of the city of New York.
To be able to represent this in the video I want to work with different pictures filled with the different colors that I’m describing, like red white and blue for the flags. Then, I want to contrast the highest things in both cities, in Santiago the mountains and in New York the different buildings. I’m using pictures because I want others to experience how I see the two cities in terms of the colors you can see in them on a daily basis. I want to play different parts of songs that I associate with the memories that I have in the cities. Mainly one song about The Andes by Patricio Mann, called Up in the mountains.
I got inspired by a famous Spanish painter called Joaquín Sorolla and by an American artist called Alexa Meade. It’s incredible how Sorolla represents light on his paintings and how he plays with it, every time I look at his art I feel a sensation of warmth and that reminds me of the colors of the sunset. He is called The Master of Light, no one can produce the same effects as him when it comes to the colors of light.
Alexa Meade is an artist who paints on people’s bodies and makes them look like paintings. The way she uses different colors to make them look like a painting in day to day situations represents in a way the way I see the world, always looking for the different colors I would use to paint that situation.
