Francisco Navarrete Sitja (Chile. 1986) is a visual artist and researcher whose work specifically engages the relationship between representation, territory, nature and non-human materialities as manifested in multiple environments, from landscape to expectations in relation to identity.

His work addresses the hegemonic narratives and perception of collective territorial imaginaries and symbolic senses attributed to the materialities that articulate those imaginaries. His intention is to interrogate the historicity of different socio-political contexts and explore the instrumental relations that underlie them. He works by combining Practice-Based Collaborative Research with expressions of visual language, archives, legal documentation, graphics, video animation, soundscapes, and contemporary images through different strategies, forms, and media.

He researches, creates, and communicates about socio-ecological issues that affect communities and lifestyles in part-urban, rural and mountain areas in South America and southern Europe. He has worked with communities that share memories and imbalances due to extractivism, depopulation, and climate crisis, among others. In this sense, he has participated, managed, and co-produced artistic-educational projects with a creative approach combining arts-based research practices, fieldwork, participatory process, and cultural intermediation; establishing multidisciplinary collaborations among artistic and scientific practices, and cooperation networks between social, cultural, environmental and institutional agents.

His background in fine arts, critical-theory, cultural management and mediation, is the foundation that shapes his practice and worldview. Incentivizing social transformation through awareness and the development of new subjectivities, is key to his practice and he attempts this through an intersection between artistic research, critical-theory, feminist-practices, social-ecology, and decolonialist theory. His background has given tools and experiences to delve into art’s potential as a transformative agent. He strives for projecting his social commitment through communities and territory that are in close relationship with their environment and their population, which favor the processes of identification, participation, self-esteem, and social cohesion.

He studied Fine Arts (BA) and Visual Arts (MA) at the Universidad de Chile, and Fine Arts (BA) at the University of Barcelona, and is a graduate of the Independent Studies Programme at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA (ES). Currently, he is co-director of L’Aquila Reale Centro d’Arte e Natura di Civitella di Licenza, in Valle Dell’Aniene, Italy.

francisconavarretesitja.com/ | laquilarealelicenza.org

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FIELDWORK Q&A – May 2020

How is fieldwork part of your practice?
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How would you describe your fieldwork activity?
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How are you currently sharing your fieldwork?
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FIELDWORK
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