Norton Maza's "Inter-Reality" will represent Chile at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026

The work selected—through a public call from the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage—will be the project featured in the Chilean Pavilion during the event, which will open in May 2026 in the Italian city.

Under the name "Inter-Reality," by Chilean artist Norton Maza, curated by Dermis León and Marisa Caichiolo, and managed by Claudia Pertuzé, it is the project selected to represent Chile at the 2026 Venice Biennale, according to the Ministry of Culture.

The proposal was chosen through a public call, highlighting its curatorial strength, artistic excellence, and the technical feasibility of Chilean representation.

"Participating in the Venice Biennale is of utmost importance as it places Chile in the largest showcase of contemporary art in the world. Norton Maza's Inter-Reality proposal stands out for its ability to foster critical reflection on national artistic creation, establishing a poetic dialogue between our local reality and major universal themes, such as ecology and geopolitics,” said the Minister of Culture, Carolina Arredondo.
The Project

Norton Maza's work addresses contemporary and universal themes, amplifying them through a Latin American perspective.

On the outside, the work manifests itself as a monumental piece that alludes to geopolitics, landscape, and ecology. This sophisticated and technological exterior intentionally contrasts with an interior of precarious and artisanal dioramas, characteristic of Latin American inventiveness.

These combine classical art (with references to works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Caravaggio) with contemporary realities, addressing urgent issues such as fake news, migration, cultural violence, and environmental devastation. This superposition of landscapes, cultures, and times functions as a metaphor for history. Latin American.

The proposal offers an immersive tour that activates all the senses. This is achieved thanks to a key sound dimension, where the sounds of helicopters and airplanes are intertwined with ancestral chants and recordings of nature collected throughout Chile from a sound archive. The ultimate goal is for the visitor to leave with a poetic and sensorial experience that connects the intimate with the political, the local with the global, inviting them to "peek" and discover what is not visible to the naked eye.
Selection

The project was selected after a rigorous evaluation process by an international jury composed of Eduardo Feuerhake (Chile), Director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Chiloé (MAM); Raphael Fonseca (Brazil), curator of modern and contemporary Latin American art at the Denver Art Museum; Victoria Noorthoorn (Argentina), director of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires; Jorge Macchi (Argentina), renowned Argentine visual artist; and Andrea Pacheco González (Chile), curator of the Chilean Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale; Sergio Pardo (USA); director of the Public Art Program at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and Voluspa Jarpa (Chile), a prominent Chilean visual artist who represented the country at the 58th Venice Biennale.

The project is led by a multidisciplinary team with distinguished experience, including Maza himself, curators Dermis León and Marisa Caichiolo, and cultural manager Claudia Pertuzé.

The team is complemented by consulting architect Mathias Klotz and visual artist and designer Beatrice di Girolamo.

Chile's participation in the Venice Biennale is due to the inter-institutional collaboration of the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage, through its Secretariat for Visual Arts, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Division of Culture, Arts, Heritage, and Public Diplomacy (DIRAC), and the Chilean Embassy in Italy.
Other recognitions

This year, the Ministry For the first time, the Festival of Cultures recognizes other projects that participated in the competition, highlighting the quality and diversity of the curatorial proposals submitted.

The first award went to "Travesías de Amereida: Are we in a land where doing is light?", a collective project based on the legacy of Amereida and the Open City, with curator Andrés Garcés.

The second award went to "Hacer un sol / To make a sun," which included artists Ester Chacón, Francisco Huichaqueo, Jumana Manna, Daniela Ortíz, Johanna Unzueta, and Cecilia Vicuña, with curator María Berríos, co-curator Amalia Cross, and curator María Gracia Obach.

Finally, Honorable Mentions were awarded to the projects "The cosmos and its planets, the earth and all its cracks" (Artist: Javier González, Curator: Shumi Nabaneeta, Manager: Bárbara Camps), "Enjambre / Swarm” (Artist:

Josefina Guilisasti, Curator: Beatriz Bustos, Manager: Juan Pablo Vergara) and “Silabario” (Casagrande Collective – Cristóbal Bianchi – Joaquín Prieto – Julio Carrasco – María José Siebald – Ginés Olivares – Jennifer Monson – Biographical Notes (Dancers and Poets), Curator: Jennifer Mc Coll, Manager: Cristóbal Bianchi).

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