While preparing the launch of its website at the GAM Center at the end of this semester, for the second consecutive year, the Héctor Herrera Archive commemorates this August 10 the birth of the Tomecino painter and craftsman (1926-2007), programming cultural activities with free entry, gestated to produce the meeting and conversation open to the community, around the life and work of who was one of the most renowned creators born in Tomé.
Designed as a day with a focus on audiovisual language and taking as a stage the renovated theater of the Cultural Center of Tomé, on Wednesday, August 10, two instances will be held in alliance with the Program Activa Tu Presente con Memoria, headed by its director, the journalist Alejandra Villarroel Sánchez, specialized in Education and Human Rights, professional who is also in charge of the Communications and Mediation area of the Héctor Herrera Archive.
The first of them will take place during the morning (from 11:30 am) and constitutes a pedagogical space especially dedicated to the educational community of the Liceo República del Ecuador, an establishment where Herrera studied until fifth grade. First and second cycle students will participate together with their teachers.
Meanwhile, the second activity will be held in the afternoon (at 7:00 p.m.) as a conversational space open to the entire community of Tomé interested in discovering and sharing memories of the self-taught painter whom the poet Pablo Neruda nicknamed “El Pajarero” and included illustrations of the artist in a cult poetry book entitled “Art of Birds”, whose publication of 1966 also added works by Mario Toral, Mario Carreño and Nemesio Antúnez.
In both moments of the day, thanks to a collaborative alliance between the Archive and the Culture Area of the municipality of Tomecino, two printed postcards will be distributed to the present public that make visible both the figure of Héctor Herrera in his beloved hometown of Tomé and his famous graphic work in the eighties, when his designs were incorporated into a limited edition of boxes of the Chilean Match Company, which circulated massively throughout the country, and the 1972 tapestry mural created in the context of the art collection of the Third World Conference on Trade and Development of the United Nations, UNCTAD III, textile found in the cellars of the current Gabriela Mistral Center, GAM, piece that is today under restoration.
Documentary record
The audiovisual emphasis of the day is due to the registration material that the Héctor Herrera Archive has produced in the course of its research process, promoted by the Herrera family in 2020 and carried out by a bi-regional multidisciplinary team rooted in the BioBío and the Metropolitan Region, headed by the designer and cultural manager Sandra Gaete Ziebold.
This material consists of four pieces. Two of documentary cut, by the audiovisual director Paulo Avilés, which make visible the research process in addition to the testimonies captured after the first exhibition of the Archive held last May at the Museum of Decorative Art in Santiago.
Although it was an activity conceived in the context of Heritage Day, the success of the exhibition motivated to extend the exhibition throughout June, managing to captivate an audience of all ages.
Along with these videos, the first two capsules of “Historias de Altomé” will also be released on the YouTube platform, a series made to promote the homonymous book that Héctor Herrera wrote and self-published in 1987.
It is a set of eight chronicles with which the artist recalls his childhood memories in the bay of Tomé, a native geography that
he decisively influenced his imaginary of abundant popular art of nature “experiences of forests inhabited by birds of poetry and music, has cheered Chile and the world because his art is universal, it cheers Moors and Christians” as he prologues with admiration
the Chilean engraver Nemesio Antúnez, of whom Herrera was a disciple.
This series of short videos -created by Estudio Arteria from the lens of the filmmaker David Contreras- began with the reading of the chapters “My memories of school” read by the poet and editor Darwin Rodríguez from the Plaza Levantada en Artes de Tomé, and “My first years” in the voice of the artisan and researcher Maestra Alicia Cáceres from the emblematic goldsmith workshop Juan Reyes located in the commune of Santiago center.
“They are the first two stories that we rescued from this unknown book, written and illustrated by Herrera in the manner of the child he was, stories that constitute a window to the Chile of the first half of the twentieth century that, in many aspects, remains the same as today” expresses Alejandra Villarroel and explains that new episodes are projected “the idea is to complete all the chapters of the book inviting the artists who knew Herrera in life, to read their stories and expand towards this little explored literary dimension, the collection of “El Pajarero”, towards the launch of our website that seeks to be a contribution to the social and artistic history of the country”.
On this last aspect, thanks to the funding obtained through a Fondart, the Archive will create a website that systematizes and makes available the main findings of the research.
The launch of the page will be itinerant, in fact, it will have four milestones that will put the team to travel at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, reaching the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center, GAM, the Nemesio Antúnez Foundation, the Pinacoteca of the University of Concepción and, finally, the Cultural Center of Tomé.
All the news of the Héctor Herrera Archive can be followed through the social networks Instagram and Facebook @hector.herrera.pajarero and the #ComunidadPajarera.
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