When we think of the idea of a cultural centre, images come to mind of live music, plays, art exhibitions, performances and an audience eager for new experiences that help them appreciate the intensity and beauty of existence. When we think of the idea of a cultural centre, we do not see sad or violent moments. However, Santiago de Chile witnessed how a cultural centre ended up housing injured young people, several with eye trauma, after constant clashes with the police.
By Denisse Leigthon
Finally, on 27 December 2019, the Centro Arte Alameda was set on fire after resisting for three months the most impactful Social Outbreak in the recent history of the South American country.
On 18 October 2019, after years of systematic social injustice affecting a large part of the population, a phenomenon took place that was marked in the memory of the citizens. Discontent over the increase in the price of public transport triggered the uprising of thousands of people in the centre of the Chilean capital. Chaos took over the streets; there were barricades, smoke and shouts in every corner of the city, which quickly spread like wildfire throughout the country. Chile was living through one of the most powerful social conflicts of recent decades. Meanwhile, on national television, the president in office declared: “We are at war against a powerful, implacable enemy, who respects nothing and no one, who is prepared to use violence and crime without limit”.
On the afternoon of 22 October 2019, a group of cultural workers gathered around a round table to think about the role that the Centro Arte Alameda, a cultural space and Chilean film theatre with 30 years of experience covering all cultural and artistic expressions, located at ground zero of the conflict, would play in this context. This group would define in which part of history they should position themselves. The table was on the first floor of the building where a large glass partition became something like a cinema screen that showed live and in real-time the serious social conflict that was burning in the street. In front of their eyes, dozens of tear gas bombs fired by the police forces were flying. The air was unbreathable. Hooded youths ran from one side to the other throwing stones that looked like flocks of birds. The Centro Arte Alameda team, led by its director, Roser Fort, was nervous; the decision was not an easy one. The place and its workers were clearly in danger. There were two options: close until the atmosphere calmed down, which could happen in a few days, weeks or perhaps months. The other option was to open the cultural centre and modify its programming with a focus on contributing to the collective consciousness of why Chile had reached this point in its history. This meant that those who worked in the cultural centre actively positioned themselves on the idea that culture was not the enemy declared by the President. Humanity throughout its existence has expressed through art its feelings, its evolutionary projection, its vision of a better world. Was this not the moment to show the world that in the midst of political and social conflict, culture is an alternative to bring people together?
The meeting was getting louder and louder due to the thunderous noise in the street. At one point, one of the members looked through the glass and pointed to something happening in front of the cultural centre. A group of health volunteers stationed on the Alameda (Santiago’s main artery) were treating dozens of injured people in the middle of the street. The police began to throw tear gas canisters at them and through this deterrent, they approached the health point to take into custody those who were completely vulnerable, lying on the ground and even half unconscious. This caught the attention of the team and struck them as cruelty they had never seen before. Everyone was shaken by what was happening, they thought to themselves “it could be me”; it shook them. An indescribable silence fell over the place. It was time to make a decision: could a group of cultural workers protect the wounded? Is it our responsibility, they wondered. Respect for human rights overcame fear. An advance party was immediately dispatched to talk to the volunteers at the health point. Minutes after, the leader of that rescue unit was sitting in front of the entire Centro Arte Alameda team at the round table. The decision was made. The next day the doors would open, and there would be an exhibition of a new programme that would contribute to education and memory. And last but not least, the foyer of the building would be fitted out so that health professionals could treat the wounded in greater safety, thus ensuring compliance with Article 4 of the 1949 Geneva Convention, to which Chile has been a signatory since 1977, which is intended to protect war victims, nurses, personnel, health facilities and means of medical transport. Thus began a new chapter in the history of the cultural centre.
Gaspar Noé, Lacrimosa, Molotov, Holden, Bruce La Bruce, Boom Boom Kid are some of the international artists who passed through the stage of Centro Arte Alameda throughout the 30 years that it remained one of the nerve centres of the Chilean underground. Since its inauguration in 1993, the entity focused its contents on contemporary art cinema and diverse artistic expressions with social and political value, being a showcase for the diffusion of national and international cultural production that had no place in the big multi-screen cinemas or stages. In this way, the “Alameda” (as it was colloquially called) for three decades made it possible, through culture and art, for great social transformations to take place in the country, such as the visibility of the lgbtiq+ movement, contributing to the development of the current wave of feminism, the questioning of the rights of immigrants, respect for human rights and much more.
The current era was a time for direct action beyond exhibition and dissemination. Now the Centro Arte Alameda would become a social actor with a high impact in the media and in front of the public.
The days of the Social Outbreak passed, one after the other, as if Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day (1993) was being realised. Todd Phillips’ “The Joker”, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro was playing, capturing the attention of hundreds of people passing outside the cultural centre as the story told in the film somehow seemed to perfectly interpret what was happening in Chile at the time. Demonstrators dressed as the Joker were photographed outside the cultural space next to the film’s promotional stand. It was as if Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) had magically stepped out of the cinema screen in the midst of social conflict to disrupt the established order. It certainly seemed like an intricate metaphor, the kind that life and fate love to create.
Every day, around 80 injured people of medium and high severity and of all ages were treated in the foyer of the Centro Arte Alameda. Among them were not only demonstrators but also people who lived in the area or who were leaving their work in the middle of ground zero and were injured on their way home. In addition, the public had to pass through the improvised healthcare centre to attend the films and events taking place inside. Catalina González, the producer of the space, recalls “We would lower the metal fence when the conflict became more violent. There were times when, in the midst of bombardments of tear gas and stones, the public would arrive and despite the panic, they would stand firm waiting for us to give them access; they would walk among the wounded and enter to see the Joker, impacted by the force of reality”.
Another constant was the tear gas bombs fired by the police that spilled out onto the roof of the cultural centre. Roser Fort comments that “every day I wrote to the captain of the first Carabineros police station in Santiago to warn her that they were firing tear gas at the roof and that it was possible that a fire might break out. The first few days she answered me, but after that she did not. I particularly remember when I wrote to her to inform her that there was a fire in the Bank on one side of the Alameda. I told her that there was a fire, that we needed to put it out and her response was ‘we all want that’. Then the next day, I asked her for help because the bank was unprotected and burnt. I said ‘I want to ask for help in case something serious happens, for you to help me with direct communication with the fire brigade to speed up any rescue action’. She replied that not only with me but with everyone, to which I replied ‘Captain, I close this conversation with the clarity that you are aware of the dangerous situation we are in at the moment’. I never heard from her again.
Three months passed, with the cultural centre converted into a health centre and under constant threat of fire from tear gas bombs fired at the roof by the police. The worst came on 27 December 2019, when the Centro Arte Alameda succumbed to fire, leaving dozens of workers without a livelihood. Roser Fort immediately contacted the law firm of Juan Pablo Hermosilla, which for three years fought a legal battle for full clarification. However, in July of this year, the Public Prosecutor’s Office took the decision to close the investigation without being able to identify either the cause or the culprits.
This year marks the third anniversary of the unpunished fire at the Centro Arte Alameda.
The rubble has still not been removed from the site.
