Atlas of the Forgotten Chile

2020

The Atlas of the Forgotten Chile is a visualization of some the thousands isolated rural and indigenous communities of Chile.

According to the 2017 census, 12.2% of the chilean population live in rural areas (2,144,028 inhabitants approximately), a population that is usually postponed by the public services and development. Many of these hamlets correspond to peasant and indigenous communities that have lived for years in the same land.

In a context of Chile that has experienced its biggest social revolt in the last 30 years, that implied a revision of the social and political identity of the country, takes special relevance to acknowledge who are those people that construct the cultural soul of a nation in tension, mainly built in the big cities. The Atlas of the Forgotten Chile attempts to reveal and highlight all those small and forgotten communities that have no power at all, those not considered by government decisions because most of them don’t even exist in maps. Those smalls communities are the aesthetics of a Chile who nobody cares about, even the forces of change that fight for a better country.

This project was developed by Guillermo Montecinos as a final project for the class All Maps Lie taught by Joey K. Lee.