Artist in Residency
LOOK/15 International Festival
Liverpool
March-May 2015

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The artist residency was part of the activities of Traces of Nitrate project in collaboration with LOOK Festival and the Bluecoat, Liverpool. It was set up to research and map forgotten relationships between Liverpool and Chile in the copper mining industry. For the first two weeks of the residency, archival research was conducted at Liverpool Central Library and Maritime Museum. From this research, I obtained a list of companies involved in Liverpool’s copper trade at the time of the opening of the London Metal Exchange in 1877, which formed the basis for the construction of an open source electronic map which was later translated into a printed map.

An interactive version of the map can be found on this Link

During the second and third weeks, photographic works were taken in Liverpool’s former banking centre, looking for elements containing copper, such as banking doors or electric cables, the North Docks outside Henry Bath industrial warehouse, and in Sudley House, built with the fortune of merchant magnate George Holt. I searched for elements containing copper in the city and within the building, such as electric plugs, or within bronze decorative elements of the architecture. The outcomes of the residency were compiled on the blog of the festival as well as a series of reviews by Cameron Proctor on the series:

Link to review of ‘Miss Chuquicamata, the Slag’
Link to review of Coquimbo & Swansea
Link to review of Antofagasta Plc., Stop Abuses!
Link to festival blog

Funded by LOOK Festival, Traces of Nitrate project and the Chilean Ministry of Culture through FONDART.