SOHIE

TOMORROW

Chile, 2012

 

Embraced by the mountains and the ocean, the arid desert mediates between planes of existence, between the world of men and the world of spirits.

In the 19th century the remote pampas of Norther Chile, become the epicentre of mining saltpetre, natural sodium nitrate used in explosives and fertilisers around the globe. Following the promise of wealth, extracting ‘ the white gold ’, the arid wasteland became the home to thousands of migrants from around the country and beyond. In the 1930’s the production of a synthetic nitrate wiped out the bustling industry. The mines started closing down, leaving in their wake the once thriving mine towns, the saltreras, to be abandoned, their remnants left to the mercy of the Atacama desert. Timber crosses dry in the immensity of time and space, names and dates in the middle of the forgotten desert, remain as a last tribute to the miner families that came from afar.

The glistening sands are punctured by little shrines; some made of assembled objects, other resemble miniature houses, chapels or cenotaphs. The Animitas are places of devotion, at locations where someone’s journey on earth tragically ended; their soul is suspended between the world of the living and the mystery of death.

The intangible landscape mirrors the human condition, as its poignant beauty echoes the stories of those longing, for the eternal tomorrow.