The photographer will make two visits to Chile, the first of exploration of possible locations for the artistic installation – as Tunick defines it -, which requires a great work and deployment by the team. The second is the installation itself, for which the public will be convened as was done in 2002, for an attempt that would be in November of this year.
From the remembered and controversial visit of the New York photographer Spencer Tunick Chile in 2002 many things in Chile have changed. However, some deep aspects of Chilean society seem to remain remarkably intact.
Tunick, famous for its artistic interventions in public spaces that explore the identity, community and the relationship of the body with the environment, returns this year to present a new project entitled SPRINGinvited by the Fundación 2046, Creatibo.COin cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The photographer will make two visits to Chilethe first exploration of possible locations for artistic installation – as Tunick defines it -, which requires great work and deployment by the team. The second is the installation itself, for which will summon the public as was done in 2002for an attempt that would be in November of this year.
The news of his return has revived a latent debate: The persistence of a conservative and normative model in Chilean society. In 2002, Chile still had fresh the political bars of the dictatorship, the 17 years of prohibitions, in a scenario dominated by authoritarianism, where violence repression was still vivid in the population, the Catholic Church in Chile during the dictatorship was an actor with a lot of decisive power and Fear, in general, did not end up uninstalling.
Chile demonstrated its internalized repression When the call in the forest park was controlled And Tunick had to adapt his work methodology: change the way to give the instructions and reposition the technical team to portray the almost 5000 people assistants ran out of the surroundings of the Fine Arts Museumtaking into account that he had contemplated between 200 and 300 people for that event.
All this in the midst of a great and unprecedented protest by conservative and religious groups, who with Bible in hand, tried to stop the event. The impact was such that the artist remembers it as “One of the most important of his career”.
The return of Tunick this 2025 has been disseminated in social media and networks, which naturally caught public attention and reactions did not wait. Against all forecast, The comments that appeared were again questioners to the eventpointing it as an aberration linked to foreign speeches, does not considerate of an alleged moral nature of the Chilean people. Hate comments proliferated towards the organizers, calling them from morbid and even “Serviles to malicious global agendas “.
This hits us in the face of those who seek to push the cultural limitations that repress human freedoms, because in Chile it seems, The manifestations that challenge traditional norms still face the public censorship and disdaindemonstrating that any progress towards a more open acceptance of disruptive sociocultural actions is still hindered by a resistance inherent in change.
In this context, events such as Tunick’s, rather than being assumed as artistic practices, become intense discussions that show that the conservative nucleus of society As soon as it has been substantially transformed since 2002.
These behaviors allow us to have some lights on why for Chile it is so difficult to specify social transformations: with two constitutional projects rejected, this election year It is worth asking if the Chilean society is really willing to take off the conservative clothes and open to look at its history in a different lightperhaps with the light between twilight and dawn, which is the time that Spencer Tunick defines as “The time where constructions do not seem to be the same as they see every day”.
