Mi Querido Valpo: A celebration of porteño art and culture by Brock Hicks

Mi Querido Valpo A celebration of porte単o art & culture

The cultural capital of Chile In 2003, the Chilean Congress declared Valparaíso to be “Chile’s Cultural Capital” and home for the nation’s new cultural ministry. Our port and hillsides burst with color, art in all shapes and sizes, and rich community life. All one has to do in Valparaíso to celebrate our unique culture is take a walk through the hills, following the twists and turns as they spill down to the port and the bustling life of the city center below. Leaf through these pages as you would wind your way along our steep streets on a lazy Sunday afternoon and rejoice in the vibrant cityscapes all around. Take in the murals, the politicized graffitti, traipse up and down on our vintage elevators, read Neruda out loud, and remind yourself why you make this crazy, insane port your home. Amongst the great diversity of our identities and politics, we are all porteños united by our love for celebrating creativity and life. It is on the wall— our need to create and recreate who we are is writ large, a chaotic clash of colors, ideas, and hopes. Stop for a few moments and take yourself on a visual journey and celebrate the unique culture that makes us proud porteños. The patchwork art and urban form spilt across the great canvas of our beloved hills embodies our rich history and cultural heritage. Nicknamed “The Jewel of the Pacific”, Valparaíso was declared a world heritage site based upon its improvised urban design and unique architecture. In 1996, the World Monuments Fund declared Valparaíso’s unusual system of funicular elevators one of the world’s 100 most endangered historical treasures. In 1998, porteño activists convinced the Chilean government and local authorities to apply for UNESCO world heritage status. Valparaíso was declared a World Heritage Site in 2003. Each of our 42 hills has a unique identity and cultural life. A walk across them is a journey into multiple forms of thought and creation, a grand ampitheater with the Pacific and city center as stage. But in our characteristically quirky porteño manner, it is the stage below that sits and watches city life unfold from above. Each hillside neighborhood is an actor in the continually unfolding play of life in our great city; together they form an ensemble of characters that define who we are. If you watch the story unfold closely, you see that despite our differences, we are all actors in the same play. If we are products of our environment, then the joyful creation and destruction of expression splashed across the urban stage reminds us that we all have a say in how the story plays out. But enough with words! Go forth armed with your senses and explore the great treasures hidden across the city from the comfort of your arm chair. Let the imagery remind you that there is more than the drudge of daily work and that our creativity defines and sustains us. Then go out and paint upon the great canvas that is our querido Valpo!

The hills are alive with color! Use this map in your wanderings to sample some of the great hidden treasures in Valpo. • Cerro • Cerro • Cerro • Cerro • Cerro

Alegre!: classic murals, alleyways, nooks & crannies Cordillera: community art workshops Cárcel: old prison turned community art center! Jiménez: great views of the hills and port lit up at night Barón: views of the city center with the famous western hills as

Viña del Mar

Cerro Barón Cerro Cerro Cerro Cárcel

Cerro Jiménez

El plan

ValparaĂso is...

colorful hills

vintage elevators

Countless

murals

1 unique city! 3

Traversing the hillsides is a feast for the eyes; multicolored houses spill down into the sea below.

Art +

and the hills are

Our timeless hillside elevators make traversing the city and hillsides an enchanting experience.

Creatively decorated stairways weave together the diverse communities of the hillsides, a celebration of the culture that binds us 4

Even Even the the old old prison prison hasisbeen now fill fil community community life. The life. creative The creative spirit of the spiritp

+ Culture

one and the same in Valpo...

Street art often takes the form of stamps, critically depicting societal problems like self-consumption through materialism.

The murals of our local artists sprawl across the Murals splash across the wallls of hillside streets hillside streets and alleyways, accompaning us and alleys, expressing the diverse identities of wherever we go... Our festivals can’t be beat! The city bursts with life night and day.

led lled with with art art and and porteño of the can’t porteños be 5

Ode to ValparaĂso by Pablo Neruda What nonsense You are What a crazy Insane Port. Your mounded head Disheveled You never finish combing your hair Life has always surprised you Death woke you In your undershirt and long underwear Fringed with color Naked With a name tattooed on the stomach And with a cap The earthquake grabbed you You ran Mad Broke your fingernails It moved The waters and the stones Sidewalks And seas The night, You would sleep In the ground Tired From your sailing And the furious earth Lifted its waves More stormy Than a tempest The dust Covered you The eyes The flames Burned your shoes The solid Houses of bankers Trembled Like wounded whales While above The houses of the poor Leapt Into nothingness Like captive birds Testing their wings Collapse Quickly Valparaiso, Sailor, You forget the tears and you return to hanging your dwellings to paint doors green Yellow, Everything

You transform into a boat Your are The patched bow Of a small Courageous Ship The crowns nest With foam Your rope lines that sing And the light of the ocean That shakes the masts And flags In your indestructible swaying Dark star You are From far away In the height of the coast Shining And soon You surrender Your hidden fire The rocking Of your deaf alleys The naturalness Of your movement The clarity Of your seamanship Here ends this ode Valparaiso So small Like a cloth Helpless Hanging Ragged in a Window Swaying In the Wind of the ocean Impregnated With all the pain Of your ground Receiving The dew Of the sea, the kiss Of the wild angry sea That with all of its power Beat the rocks It could not Knock you down Because on your southern chest Is tattooed The struggle The hope The solidarity And the joy As anchors Resisting The waves of the earth.

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