Region is an immersion into understanding a territory as a newcomer from the city to the countryside. The zone is a rural area in Araucanía, Chile, a territory marked by a historical Indigenous Mapuche conflict for the recovery of territories, tourism, and a thriving city-nature exodus. Zegers aims to steer away from romanticized or discriminatory imaginaries of Chile’s rural life in the search for a new perspective, questioning colonialist perspectives and his own positions.
“This project is a personal exercise in which fragments of different everyday stories are found in a common space. A real and fictitious space is built to reveal a deeper reality. Region occurs within geographical boundaries that are no longer tied to legal boundaries. This so-called Region is defined by everyday life events, constantly reshaping its ‘map.’” - Marcos Zegers.
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Marcos Zegers is a documentary photographer from Chile. With an architect background, his documentary research work focuses mainly on geopolitical and territorial conflicts, which he approaches from a contemporary and multidisciplinary perspective.
For the first time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Joop Swart Masterclass took place online over a period of four months, and 24 participants and eight masters were selected to make the program more inclusive. The educational experience of the Joop Swart Masterclass is based on an assignment to produce a photo essay around a given theme. This year the theme was ‘Reset’.
