Gateway to Patagonia / Talks on Mar del Plata
- Date
- 20 May 2021
- Place
- Mar del Plata, Argentina
Gateway to Patagonia Three explorations of Mar del Plata and its territory
Speakers: Dr. Marcelo Zárate (geology), Lic. Matías Taglioretti (paleontology), Arch. Guillermo de Diego (architecture)
Organized by: CEAC, Negra40
Mar del Plata, Gateway to Patagonia
The city of Mar del Plata is, above all, a territory — a wild frieze of space broken off from the heart of the cosmos. Before the grid streets and the seaside resorts, Mar del Plata was shaped by the wind off the Andes and by ice; it was the beginning and the end of an extravagant fauna, born thousands of kilometers from its shores; it was home to other men and women who ruled the nearby hills, streams and pampa; it was marked by a decisive meteorite that changed everything. On that ground, now in the age of machines and noise, we find the built city we know, with its heightened contradictions and its strangely blurred future.
The three sessions we propose under the title Mar del Plata, Gateway to Patagonia revisit the millennial narrative of the territory that holds the city — one that may lie closer to Patagonian ground than we think — through three interwoven lenses and a closing conversation: geological, paleontological and architectural.
Schedule
- Thursday, May 20, 7 pm — History of the Chapadmalal cliffs and the 3.3-million-year-old enigma. Dr. Marcelo Zárate.
- Saturday, June 5, 5 pm — Evolution of South American fauna through the paleontological sites of southeastern Buenos Aires province. Lic. Matías Taglioretti.
- Thursday, June 17, 7 pm — Beach rurality. Arch. Guillermo de Diego.
- Thursday, July 1, 7 pm — Panel discussion: toward the Gateway to Patagonia. With Guillermo de Diego, Mario Gemin and Martín Virgili.
About the panel discussion
In a short conversation, designer Mario Gemin, architect Guillermo de Diego and composer Martín Virgili approach the landscape of Los Acantilados from the projective, the architectural and the sonic, aiming to sketch new possible meanings for the place. Mario Gemin presents the project “Mar del Plata, Gateway to Patagonia,” created in the late 1990s and revisited in this lecture series.
The talks were held via videoconference (Zoom); free to attend, with limited spots.
Additional material
Campana – Acantilado (2020), a sound documentary on the rise of the Los Acantilados neighborhood, by Martín Virgili.