03/05/2025
Just launched a fundraiser for the Contuy Community Library!
Hello, my name is Dan Cameron, and I'm a Manhattan-based curator and art critic who's been actively researching the fascinating art being made in the Chilean archipelago of Chiloé for the past ten years, work that led to the opening, in May 2023, of a community-based exhibition space called La Capilla Azul (The Blue Chapel). Assembled from the 19th century wooden structure that had been the Catholic Church for the small community of Contuy (later deconsecrated), the project is managed by myself and two good Chilean friends: curator Ramón Castillo and photographer Pablo Carvacho. Pablo is co-owner, with his wife Marcela Enriqueta, of Comarca Contuy, a full-service lodge and working farm centered on four residential cabins nestled in the trees overlooking the Estuary Paildad. The Comarca is where the Capilla is located. Pablo is also President of Fundación Soiocutural Comarca Contuy, which practices sustainable agriculture, develops rural tourism, and promotes art education in three nearby rural schools.
Once Capilla Azul was open to the public, Pablo called a community meeting of several Contuy families in late 2023, to discuss what the residents would like to see happen next. To his surprise, most of his neighbors felt strongly that a community library should be the next feature of Comarca Contuy, so when a pair of French architecture students visited in early 2024 as part of a work exchange, they were given the task of creating initial drawings and visualizations for a small library located within a clearing in the woods behind the Capilla. These are the images you see here.
When word got out last year about our plan to build this library, we began receiving generous donations of books from friends, family and neighbors, so we decided to take a modified path. First, we would renovate a good-sized room at the Comarca to serve as a provisional library for the books already received, hire a librarian to begin classifying them, and open it to the community. Second, once that stage was complete, we'll adapt the drawings made last year for the locale, and begin planning for on-site constriction. The third step will be to purchase wood and other building materials, and the fourth entails putting together a crew, ideally led by Rene, the master carpenter who renovated the Capilla. While it is conceivable that these steps could be completed by the end of this year, so that the building would be done for our January 2026 opening, we are anticipating that it will take at least a year to get to the fifth step, which is building the library, and the sixth step, which is to stock it with books, audiobooks, and other materials. More than likely our specialty will be the arts, although many other subjects are sure to be covered as well in the library's holdings
The anticipated budget is as follows: $2000 for Step 1, $1000 for Step 2, $5000 for Step 3, $5000 for Step 5, and $2000 for Step 6. Our target date for opening the provisional library is September 2025, with the final building to be ready for use by January 2027.
Thank you in advance for any contribution you can make to this visionary project that will be an important vehicle to culturally enrich the community of Contuy, on the Gran Isla de Chiloé, Chile.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-enrich-contuy-with-a-new-library/cl/o?lang=en_US&ts=1746300558&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp14_t1-amp15_t2&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&attribution_id=sl%3A32cbfb33-f47c-428e-ae8a-618f992a4940&v=amp14_t1
