This photographic work is based on the current historical and archaeological background about the Foundation of Santiago de Chile. These facts would reveal that the nucleus of the city we know today would have been built on an Inca astronomical and ceremonial center for sun worship.

 

In the Spanish-American urban model, the main square is the physical and symbolic center of the city, a point that originates the regular and perpendicular layout arranged according to the four cardinal axes. In the case of Santiago de Chile, the main square called “ Plaza de Armas”  is deflected six degrees less to the west, it is off-center and out of line with the usual pattern of colonial urbanism. As a result of this mismatch, it was discovered that the location of this center would be adjusted to another pattern, based on an Andean spatial construction order. The main square would then be the exact demarcation of the intercession of two solar phenomena, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, aligned to the surrounding hills. 

 

"Six degrees less to the west" is the starting point of this intersection, the cross between these two temporary maps that shape the urban and historical space in which we live and that makes us rethink the city and its origin.

 

The photographs of this series were taken within the perimeter of the historic center, the triangulation of Alameda Avenue, Mapocho River and Independence Avenue, around 2014 and 2015. Exploring the ideas of mismatch, overlap, and of the invisible, a new map is drawn up that proposes to observe the city as the sun's course is observed. The cartographic image of the city is presented in this way as a double route, a physical movement of walking as well as a transit of the light, which appeals to both the photographic and the solar.