Conflicting representations around Valparaiso's former prison.

Camila van Diest (1)

1 CERLIS - UMR 8070 - Centre de recherche sur les liens sociaux

In 2007, the city of Valparaiso (Chile) received a " donation " from the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. It was a blueprint for a cultural centre, planned to be built on the grounds of an old prison. This project was never implemented and caused serious discussions in the Chilean public sphere. The conversion of this prison into the "Former prison cultural park " coincides with the last phase of government of the centre-left political coalition created to defeat Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship (1973-1989). This paper will focus on how the conflict set off by the Niemeyer project reveals an official representation for the country in which "cultural infrastructure" plays a crucial and symbolic role. This process starts as an implicit cultural policy, set forth by institutions without any relation to "explicitly" cultural issues. This project provides an analytical opportunity to gain insight into the articulations between cultural policies and the economic model that has been operating in Chile since the dictatorship.

Mots clés: cultural policy; Valparaiso's former prison (Chili); cultural infrastructure; representations; Urban sociology

Domaines: Sociologie

Camila van Diest. Conflicting representations around Valparaiso's former prison. : Considerations on culture and politics. 7th conference of the Research Network Sociology of the Arts , Institute for Music Sociology - University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Sep 2012, Vienna, Austria. ⟨halshs-01476564⟩