On Facing Latin/South American Coloniality: The Travesía de Amereida and the Geo-Poetic Turn at the Valparaíso School

Abstract

This article traces the aesthetics, fundaments, and poietic practices developed by the members of the School of Architecture and Design of the Catholic University of Valparaíso during the 1960s, which enabled them to elaborate a geo-poetic perspective linked to the land, or “Interior Sea”, of Latin/South America. In order to unpack this perspective, we present how their poetic exploration of ontological and epistemological questions about Latin/South America led to their performance of the Travesía de Amereida (1965), a radical poetic journey oriented around crossing and being crossed by the continental interior lands, and to the subsequent invention of the epic poem Amereida (1967). By examining the different Acts performed during the Travesía and analysing excerpts from the poem, we establish how the School situated actions together with the tropes of the unknown, or not-knowing, and the Interior Sea, as original ways to critically confront and question the coloniality imposed upon and still present in the continent. Concomitantly, we stress how this geo-poetic perspective grounded within the School generated a radical turn and delinking of the academicist episteme in design, which provides stimulating perspectives not only for design studies developed in the region but also for the field of cultural studies.