Celebracion,
2004, 72 archival inkjet prints
overall dimensions 60 x 40"
individual image 5 x7"

Mariana Silva's art projects are deeply rooted in the social and political reality of her native Chile. Silva's videos, interactive installations and photographic documentations are just a result of her interest in the role of an artist as a mediator between people and their land. "Collective Behaviors of the Inhabitants of Chile", 2003, her latest project, investigates contemporary ritual behaviors throughout Chile, which act as foundations for a sense of social belonging. Silva has documented religious, political, sportive, and cultural events in which individuals become part of a (ideologically driven) social group. Her role as a 'mediator' allows the subject to speak for it self, providing a framework through which contemporary historical events might be analyzed and comprehended as part of a historical chain. The methodology of art gives Mariana Silva the possibility "to access the people of a nation and try to unmask the way in which the history of an individual and the national history are interconnected. It also gives Silva the possibility, through the use of technology, to restitute the territorial weaving, allowing human existence and experience to operate as the only way to represent history".