Arts and Culture

For Collahuasi, the arts and culture are an important element in the growth of a community. Its Casa Collahuasi Art Gallery in Iquique, next to the company’s offices, holds monthly exhibitions of top-quality work for the enjoyment of the population, including particularly artists from the Tarapacá Region. This Gallery has emerged as one of the most important centres for the arts in Iquique.

• See Casa Collahuasi Art Gallery

In addition, Collahuasi offers the Tarapacá community productions that include shows, plays, literary events and concerts by youth orchestras as part of its constant efforts to increase the region’s access to high-quality examples of the arts and culture.

In 2009, these activities included:

• First Tarapacá Film Festival. In March 2009, the First Tarapacá Film Festival took place. Sponsored by Collahuasi and supported by the Tarapacá Council for Culture and the Arts, it was organised by the 7Magiasfilms producer. The event was designed to attract Chilean and international audiovisual work, serving as a forum for the diffusion and promotion of new film and audiovisual productions in general and positioning Iquique on a par with the main Chilean and international cultural capitals.

• Support for increased awareness of Aymara culture. In May 2009, Collahuasi supported Pica’s Ch’alla Marka (People of the Sand) folklore group in its recording of a DVD as part of a project harnessing new technologies to the recovery and conservation of the Aymara language through songs, dance and traditional dress. Financed by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts in the Tarapacá Region, this project sought to take the ancestral culture of northern Chile to public places and schools, preserving Andean features such as the songs, dance, dress, language and customs of the Aymara people.

• Support for the launch of a record by Magdalena Amenábar. Thanks to the sponsorship of Collahuasi, Magdalena Amenábar, a soprano, could realise her dream of making the “As you like it” record which she launched in June 2009 before an audience of over 300 people in Santiago’s Visual Arts Museum. The production also included Oscar Olsen on the lute, Octavio Hasbún on the flute and Eduardo Figueroa on the theorbo, musicians who have explored so-called ancient music and played pieces from the Medieval, Baroque and Renaissance periods.  

• Presentation of “París-Santiago” by the National Ballet and Los Jaivas in northern Chile. At the end of August, the inhabitants of Iquique, Antofagasta and San Pedro de Atacama were able to enjoy a top-level artistic event in “París-Santiago”, a live performance bringing together the moving music of Los Jaivas and the dance skills of the Chilean National Ballet (BANCH). This event was possible thanks to important support from the Collahuasi and Escondida mining companies.

• Collahuasi sponsorship of launch of the book “Romeo y Julieta. Tú o nadie”. Essential issues such as the role of fate, drug use, street violence and love and death are addressed in the book “Romeo y Julieta. Tú o Nadie. La Violencia del Amor” by the journalist Juan Antonio Muñoz. Launched at the beginning of November 2009 in Santiago’s Visual Arts Museum, it was sponsored by Collahuasi under the Cultural Donations Law and by the Corporación Patrimonio Cultural de Chile.

• Concerts by the National Symphonic Youth Orchestra in Iquique and Pica. In mid-November 2009, the communities of Iquique and Pica were able to enjoy a high-quality artistic event when, thanks to the sponsorship of Collahuasi, the National Symphonic Youth Orchestra, which forms part of the Youth and Child Orchestras of Chile Foundation, played for the first time in the Tarapacá Region with Felipe Hidalgo as its conductor.

• Ancient China and Terracotta Army Exhibition in Chile. In December 2009, the “Ancient China and Terracotta Army” exhibition opened in Santiago’s Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda. It included over 120 pieces, created in ancient China between 221 BC and 24 AC, but discovered only 35 years ago in the most important archaeological find of the twentieth century. This was the first exhibition in Chile of these great treasures of Imperial China, considered part of the heritage of humanity, and was possible thanks to the sponsorship of Collahuasi and Banco Santander.