The waters make us live

The art historian Cristian Vargas Paillahueque offers a lecture exploring different historical and aesthetic perspectives on the Mapuche territory, promoted by a variety of creative proposals and their ties to political movements. In this lecture, entitled The Water Makes Us Live: History, Artistic Practices and Diverse Aesthetics from the Mapuche Territory of Cautín, Vargas highlights the diversity of bodies of water and territorial defense as a fundamental part of the human relationship with its environment. 

This activity is part of the public programme accompanying the exhibition Cautín by Seba Calfuqueo and includes a conversation with its curator, Marina Avia Estrada, afterwards.

Cristian Vargas Paillahueque is an art historian and curator with a BA in Art History and Theory and an MA in Latin American Studies and is currently a PhD candidate in the same field at the Universidad de Chile. His main fields of research are the study of collections, Indigenous heritage, and traditional and contemporary Indigenous art. He has organized a number of exhibitions, including Kalül ñi tukulpan. Memorias del cuerpo mapuche at the Centro Cultural de España in Santiago (2021), Miradas sobre el Wallmapu. Territorios, afueras y disputas at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile (2023–2025) and Fugas de lo nuestro. Visualidades indígenas de sur a norte at the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (2024). In recent years, he has been general coordinator of the catalogue raisonné project at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (2023–2024) and curator of the exhibition titled Vivos y Presentes. Arte de los Pueblos Atacameño/Lickanantay, Mapuche y Rapanui (2025–2026).

Marina Avia Estrada is head of exhibitions and public programs at TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. She is an art historian and curator and holds an MA in Critical and Curatorial studies from Columbia University (Fulbright Scholar) and an MA in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture from the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has previously worked at institutions such as IPCNY (International Print Center New York), the Wallach Art Gallery, Tabacalera Promoción del Arte, and AECID (the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation). She recently co-curated for TBA21 the exhibition Moby Dick—The Whale. The Story of a Myth from Antiquity to Contemporary Art (Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, 2025) and is the curator of the exhibition Cautín by Seba Calfuqueo (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2026).