All participants of TIF 2023 (field trip + forum):
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Terra Ignota Forum / Field Trip #04 will access the so-called “intercultural contact zone” (Selk’nam, Kawesqar and Yagán) located in Yendegaia National Park in 3 groups from different directions:
Route 1:
Access route from Yendegaia. Possible access route from the Yagan community to Bahía Blanca.
You can follow group 01 in realtime here from March 3rd on.
Route 2:
Land access by Route Y-85. Descent to Lapataia Valley on foot by the walkable access route.
You can follow group 02 here from March 1st on.
Route 3:
Almirantazgo Sound – Parry Fjord. This maritime access route to Bahia Blanca.
Expedition 2023
timeline
map
This application is designed to distribute the content stored in rocks, wind, and the gaze of a subjective observer along 1000 km of the fire-patagonian territory. The platform functions as a map that transcends the three Cartesian planes that delimit it, managing information that integrates spatial, temporal, and sensory dimensions. This is an improved version ...
Caleta Wulaia, historical and archaeological evidence
by Robert Carracedo Recasens Wulaia Cove is located south of the Murray or Yagashaga Channel, northeast of Ponsonby Seno, also called Agā́i̯ya by the Yaghan community. It is a cove sheltered from the south and southwest winds by a group of small islands and islets. It has abundant fresh water thanks to the Matanza River ...
Remote Listening
by Florencia Curci During my stay in Wulaia, I repeatedly imagine the scene of the first radio transmission. I playfully extrapolate that late 19th-century moment in the United Kingdom, where a sound generated in Bristol (England) resonated in Pernath (Wales): for the first time, I can hear something happening simultaneously but outside my immediate surroundings. ...
Complexities of the wind
by Nicolas Spencer This research aims to get in tune with the intensities, turbulence and heterogeneity of the the masses of moving air based in Wulaia/Ponsonby. I would like to generate experiences that allow us, in a sensitive way and with rudimentary technologies, to tune in to (1) the complexity of chaotic movements that make up the ...
Whale Refractions
Whale Refractions is a research project currently underway at the Centre for Advanced Study inherit based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Questions of addressing ‘heritage at large’ grew out of previous itterations of the Terra Ignota platform while observing oscillatory interrelations between humans and marine mammals and evolutions of cetacean underwater hearing in the historical and geological and climate contexts ...
Forum: Traces and Encounters
> projects / 2025 / radiales / Preliminary Visit / Emerging Archive / Historic Background / Forum / Documentation / Participants Open dialog Between Art, Science and the Museum.Date: 5 and 6 February from 18:00 – 20:00Venue: Museo Territorial Yagán Usi – Martín González CalderónAragay corner Gusinde, Puerto Williams, Chile. ...
Cultural and historical background of the area
> projects / 2025 / radiales / Visita Preliminar / Archivo Emergente / Antecedentes Históricos / Foro / Documentación / Participantes Robert Carracedo et al. The Murray Channel, formerly known as Yagashaga or Yagán Channel, is a silent witness to a vast cultural heritage that stretches from the ancestral past to the recent historical past. ...
Emerging Archive
> projects / 2025 / radiales / Preliminary Visit / Emerging Archive / Historic Background / Forum / Documentation / Participants The idea is to understand the heritage as something living, as an activity inscribed in otherness. We are interested in conceiving the distinctive and emerging characteristics of these ecosystems and establishing new definitions necessary ...
Radiales
> projects / 2025 / radiales / Preliminary Visit / Emerging Archive / Historic Background / Forum / Documentation / Participants Radiales is the name of the new project by Terra Ignota, extending the geological research “Intercultural Contact Zone” conducted between 2017 and 2024 in Yendegaia National Park. This project continues the transdisciplinary study as ...
Extinction!? – documentation
>> Background Before the research trip to the Zona de Contacto Intercultural, Fernanda Olivares and Nicolás Spencer were invited to participate in a residency at Weltmuseum Wien to be part of the exhibition “Extinction!?” as part of the TAKING CARE project. The idea of this residency was to work with objects from the collections obtained by Martin Gusinde and Carl Hagenbeck and explore new museographic ...
Extinction!? – background
The origin of this work dates back to 2015, following a visit to the Gusinde-Hagenbeck collection consisting of cultural objects originally belonging to the Kawesqar, Selk’nam, Yagán and and Aonikenk peoples, which are now housed in the Weltmuseum, Vienna (formerly the anthropological museum). The review of this collection was initially conducted by Alfredo Prieto and ...
Extinction!?
In 2022, Fernanda Olivares and Nicolás Spencer were invited to participate in a residency at Weltmuseum to be part of the exhibition “Extinction!?” as part of the TAKING CARE project. The idea of this residency was to work with the objects belonging to the collections obtained by Martin Gusinde and Carl Hagenbeck and explore new ...
Rocas
A sound installation by Nicolás Spencer made up of 44 stones in suspension – all collected from Fiordo Témpano north of Puerto Edén to Cabo de Hornos and about to be returned to the place where they were found. In addition to being considered part of the living heritage of the southern territory, the rocks ...
Oscillators
by Nicolas Spencer Archaeology is a scientific discipline that studies human behavior through the recovery, analysis, and interpretation of past and present material and cultural remains. The wind oscillator is a tool that considers this natural force as a cultural object, providing clues about human activity where it resonates. The numbers represent the distance in centimeters ...
Cerro Otten
This project is an archaeological prospection in Cerro Otten, Última Esperanza, Magallanes, Chile – following the discovery of rock-paintings by Alfredo Prieto in 2022. Despite being located in an easily accessible territory close to inhabited places, the area features numerous unexplored valleys and favorable conditions for discovering rich archaeological sites. The study is aiming to document Prieto’s findings and to establish ...
Preliminary Visit (Bahia Wulaia)
> projects / 2025 / radiales / Preliminary Visit / Emerging Archive / Historic Background / Forum / Documentation / Participants In preparation for the Radiales project (2025) we did an initial field trip in March 2024 in order to familiarize ourselves with the territory, to meet with the local community, partners and friends, to ...
Polar
Artistic vision The Antarctic continent is the one continent that is still seemingly secluded from the rest of the world. It was the last great land mass discovered by humans and uninhabited until the beginning of its colonization in the early 1820s. For decennia, it has served as a collaborative research territory, governed and safeguarded ...
3D scans TDF 2023
Alero el Paso – Rock shelter (69.060330ºW, 54.605527ºS, MAMSL 572)LIDAR scan with Scaniverse, IPad Pro 11″, March 08 2023(download .fbx file, 87,7 MB) CMT1_BB2 – Tree mark (69.138833ºW, 54.550670ºS, MAMSL 1)LIDAR scan with Scaniverse, IPad Pro 11″, March 12 2023(download .fbx file 35,2 MB) CMT2_BB2 – Tree mark (69.139301ºW, 54.551048ºS, MAMSL 1)LIDAR scan with Scaniverse, ...
exhibition
> projects / 2024 / contact zones / conference / exhibition / participants The exhibition at UMAG documents results and different methodologies developed around the discovery of the Intercultural Contact Zone (ICZ) in the Yendegaia National Park. The expedition(s) carried out by the Terra Ignota team (2021 and 2023) confirmed the existence of a transit ...
conference
> projects / 2024 / contact zones / conference / exhibition / participants 13.3.24 Projection: Heritage as an Activity Ideas and strategies to address a challenging question of heritage and environmental responsibility will be discussed. Terra Ignota Forum proposes to conceive spaces as dynamic and adaptable fields with the power to regenerate and reprogram themselves ...
Conatct Zones
> projects / 2024 / contact zones / conference / exhibition / participants Terra Ignota Forum 2024Facultades de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad de Magallanes Manuel Bulnes 01855, Punta Arenas Exhibition March 13 – June 13 (Opening, March 13 7 p.m.) (details >>>)Forum March 13 – 15 (program details >>>) Terra Ignota Forum (TIF) proposes a multidimensional ...
TIF UACh 2023
The Terra Ignota Forum (TIF) is a knowledge transfer and training program with the communities of the Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica. The project was developed around the discovery of the Intercultural Contact Zone (ICZ) found in 2021 in Yendegaia National Park by the Terra Ignota team. The discovery confirmed the existence of a passage ...
Sonic Islands
Mirrored perceptions between Tierra del Fuego + RügenMarch and September 2023 Objects in mirror are closer than they appear (unknown automobile producer) Important for the Terra Ignota project is the aspect of mediation. How can this artistic-scientific knowledge production be translated for a wider audience? What are suitable formats for public presentation? How can results ...
Terra Ignota Forum 2023/24
Terra Ignota Forum (TIF) is a field laboratory that seeks to develop and implement a contemporary archive on the so-called “intercultural contact zone” (Selk’nam, Kawesqar and Yagán) located in Yendegaia National Park (YNP). The project is deployed in two stages, the first is the continuation of our interdisciplinary research in the territory and field forum ...
TIF 2023 background
For years, the pass between Yendegaia and Admiralty Sound had been the subject of attention as a possible “Indian pass”, a route of communication between the different ethnic groups that passed through these areas. This had been attested to by the English missionaries Thomas Bridges and Fred Lawrence at the end of the 19th century ...
participants
all artists and researchers of pre-projects, actual and planned activities
partners
Terra Ignota is made possible with the support and in partnership with Consejo Nacional de las Artes / UMAG (University of Magallanes) / ENAP (National Petroleum Company) / Fundación Prisma Austral / The Río Seco Natural History Museum / Cirrus SpA / CLDC Corporación Laguna de los Cisnes WSC (Wildlife Conservation Society) / CAB (Casa Museo Alberto Baeriswyl) / LiquenLab / Comunidad Yaghan de Mejillones / Caleta María / Weltmuseum Wien / BKA (Bundeskanzleramtes der Republik Österreich) / Austrian Embassy in Chile / Goethe-Institut / Pro Helvetia / SKE austromechana / Creative Industries Fund NL / Transbordadora Austral Broom
about
Terra Ignota is a transdisciplinary research platform that has been developing a recurrent nomadic laboratory in the sub-Antarctic territory of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn since 2015. The modular team is testing hybride scientific/artistic methods of knowledge-production and mediation in a territory with unique ecosystemic and geopolitical singularities that is undergoing rapid transformations. In a modular way – through interconnected encounters and thematic clusters – it facilitates artistic alliances and interdisciplinary learning that is strongly rooted in the local and founded on sustainable partnerships.
In the past five years, Terra Ignota has studied the effects of anthropogenic influence in the Zona de Contacto Intercultural (1) – between Bahia Blanca and Yendegaia Bay, and its geological extension through the Murray Channel to the bio-cultural aggregation zone of Seno Ponsonby. A current research focus among others is the development of a contemporary archive(2) and comprehensive vertical mapping(3) approach of this territory, connecting diverse layers of information from geophysiological deep time to global data streams, trying to understand their complex entanglements. (see Radiales)
(1) Zona de Contacto Intercultural
a natural corridor served as a place of contact between three ancestral ethnic groups that used to traverse this area: the Selk’nam, Kawésqar, and Yagán. (see details)
(2) contemporary or emerging archive
a register that organises and represents the connections between the elements of the territory, considering them as sources of information. More than a storage of data, this archive systematises and translates knowledge in terms of matter, energy and information, covering time scales ranging from geological processes to the present. (see details)
(3) vertical mapping
Cartography of a territory that transcends the three Cartesian planes that delimit it, incorporating temporal and sensorial factors (example vertical cartography). (example vertical cartographl)
contact
Nicolas Spencer – artist, Santiago/Punta Arenas
Alfredo Prieto – archaeologist, professor at Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG), Puerto Natales
Carsten Stabenow – curator, tunedcity, Berlin
Please get in contact with us via info@terra-ignota.net
Since 2024 we are formal partners of Corporación Laguna de los Cisnes – non-profit organisation, under the protection of the law 20.500 and 19.418.
