timeline

During this year’s exploration, we will install a radio studio in the former Wulaia station and broadcast daily. We will continue the research in situ, offering listeners a perspective on different projects while experimenting with the radio format itself. ...

The Cultural Agglomeration Zone project investigates the accumulation of cultural, historical, and environmental layers in Bahía Wulaia and Seno Ponsonby (in the Cape Horn archipelago).
Indigenous habitation, over prolonged periods of time, is also understood as a sustainable model from which to gauge current transformations in the region. The effects of climate change in Ponsonby can be observed in real-time through precipitation patterns and vegetation as well as the rapid growth in maritime logistics and expanding Antarctic route linked with the politics and economics of the thawing polar region. This increasing global pressure threatens the fragile local heritage and its uniquely rich sub-Antarctic oceanic ecosystem. Ancient forests, lichen cultures, peat- and wetlands, rivers, and marine habitats and migration channels become increasingly vulnerable in a geopolitical zone that has long been shaped by territorial disputes that ignores this ecological fragility. ...

Since 1967, Villa Ukika —founded as part of state relocation policies— has been the main Yagán settlement on Navarino Island, in the heart of the Fuegian archipelago. In its surroundings, the Ukika Municipal Park stands out as a true living archive of ancestral knowledge and history, thanks to the presence of at least 103 documented Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) to date. ...

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. ...

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 ...

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. It is not just an acoustic phenomenon; in some way, time and space are transformed. Something happening elsewhere, in real time, reaches my ears, challenging the physical boundaries that once defined my daily experience. ...

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 winds (2) and how this invisible activity shapes not only the physiognomy of the landscape but also the biological activity that inhabits its surface. ...

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 of the Magallanes Region. ...

The interdisciplinary group Terra Ignota invites dialogue on present and future ways of caring for the natural and cultural heritage on Isla Navarino, through a two-day programme of presentations, listening and workshop sessions @ Museo Territorial Yagán Usi - Martín González Calderón ...

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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. Its legacy spans from the original people who gave the bay its name, dating back over 6,000 years, to the colony and the European exploration and exploitation processes of the 19th century. ...

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 a way to understand this territory and its different forms of interpretation. ...

> projects / 2022 / Extinction!? / background / documentation / participants 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 ...

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 are conceived as lithic witnesses of geological, historical or present-day events. ...

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. ...

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 and discuss protocols for archaeological prospecting of this area in the future. ...

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 discuss some first ideas and frameworks and to get an idea about the place, logistics (transportation, access routes, etc.). ...

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 zone between the Beagle Channel (Yendegaia Bay) and Almirantazgo Sound (Bahía Blanca) through the Darwin Range, suggesting a point of contact between three ancestral ethnic groups (Selk'nam, Kawésqar and Yagán). ...

3 day conference as part of Terra Ignota Forum hosted by the Universidad de Magallanes in Punta Arenas. ...

> 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 ...

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 between between the Beagle Channel (Yendegaia bay) and the Admiralty Sound  across the Darwin Range, a point of contact between three ancestral ethnic groups that used to pass through this area: the Selk'nam, Kawésqar and Yagán communities. ...

In September and October 2022, Fernanda Olivares, an activist, and Nicolás Spencer,an artist, both from Chile, came to Vienna for two weeks to conduct research at theWeltmuseum Wien. The aim of their visit was to develop work for Extinctions!?, anexperimental exhibition, which opened at Weltmuseum Wien in February 2023, aspart of the TAKING CARE project. ...

If you mirror the globe, you will find Germany's largest island, Rügen, at almost exactly the opposite position of Tierra del Fuego. Both lie at precisely the same latitude. (54°36'20.5 "S Tierra del Fuego / 54°36'20.5 "N Rügen). A closer look reveals many similarities in geography and landscape, climate, flora and fauna, history and archaeology, culture and even recent social and demographic dynamics. ...

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 (2023). The process and research will be documented and published in different media, individual artistic projects developed further and presented in the second stage to the public beginning of 2024 at the Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas. ...

> projects / 2023 / Terra Ignota Forum / background / documentation / participants 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 ...

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 museographic forms based on perception, feelings, the discussion around extinction, and the recognition of the Selk’nam community in Chile as a living community. ...

Recording of a swing-gate on lighthouse access road, route 257, played back in an abandoned petroleum tank, Puerto Percy, during the onset of a windstorm. ...

Achæoscillator_Towards incorporeal forms of sensing listening and gaze is a Collection of short essays published by Ars Electronica in the frame of the project In Keppler's Garden (2020) ...

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 ...

This trip aimed to expand the experience of working with wind by involving a larger team. To this end, work was carried out on the installation anemOSC, which would later be called Wind Oscillator. ...

In early 2015, the first exploratory trip was made to the commune of Cape Horn, south of the Beagle Channel. The work revolves around the notion of distance—both cultural and geographical—and the materiality of wind, approached as a cultural object for interpreting the territory. ...