Forensic Matter

The Lonquén case, as it is known, was the first case that definitively confirmed the denied existence of the detained-disappeared. Besides establishing that fifteen men who had been detained on October 7, 1973, had been thrown into the furnace of an abandoned mine, buried, and left there in clandestine cemeteries, the forensic analysis and the inspecting judge’s investigation also revealed that the depositions given by the policemen involved in the crime were completely false. Despite the prominence of the Lonquén case, little attention has been placed on the documentary photographs that served to secure and present the physical remains found as forensic evidence. I consider two sets of photographs taken by Vicaría de la Solidaridad photographers Helen Hughes and Luis Navarro at the abandoned mine during the first days of December 1978, immediately after the findings. My analysis centers on the photos that were disseminated publicly and also considers how the unpublished photos (the vast majority) were discussed in the media. The chapter ends with a brief consideration of No Olvidar (Not To Forget) (1982) by Ignacio Agüero, and La ciudad de los fotógrafos by Sebastián Moreno, two documentary films in which the traces of Lonquén continue emerging.

Persistence of the Portrait

The first chapter underscores the counter-archival work carried out by the Vicaría de la Solidaridad in the composition of the photographic archive of the detained-disappeared. The chapter also considers the different transformations, displacements, and disseminations endured by the portraits of the detained-disappeared. It considers the critical work of Walter Benjamin, Diana Taylor, and Ann Stoler. The analysis contemplates both the composition of the photographic archive of the portraits and the archive’s dissemination in the public space. I consider the Vicaría’s publications Solidaridad (a biweekly newsletter), Separata Solidaridad (a special issue that focused on particular matters also considered in Solidaridad), and the seven-volume book series ¿Dónde están? (1978–1979). I suggest that the visual representation of the crime of forced disappearances, which took shape with the public display of the portraits, was consolidated in these Vicaría publications, above all in ¿Dónde están? I also study artistic photographic practices devised to display and disseminate these photographic portraits in the public space. The chapter begins and ends with a consideration of Hernán Parada’s action “Obrabierta A” (1974–present), in particular one of its iterations in which the artist uses a photocopied mask of his brother, Alejandro Parada, detained and disappeared since July 1974.

Epilogue

The Insubordination of Photography ends with an Epilogue about the 2015 exhibition Chile desde adentro, one of the latest iterations of Chile from Within, a book edited by Susan Meiselas in collaboration with a group of AFI photographers in 1988 and published in New York in 1990. The exhibition centers on photography, postmemory, and the transition from dictatorship to democracy after the Chilean Plebiscite of 1988.

Emergence of a Field

This chapter explores the discursive emergence of the photographic field. I elucidate the connections between the discursive emergence of the photographic field and the state of emergency installed on the same day the new Constitution took effect. My analysis considers how this expansion took place in the middle of Chile’s most severe economic crisis (which reached a climax in 1982), and also how the prevailing precariousness determined both the discourses about the photographic field that was beginning to consolidate, as well as the materiality, themes, and formal aspects of the different initiatives designed to consolidate the photographic field. The chapter also discusses the economists referred to as the Chicago Boys. In this chapter, I consider the texts published in Asociación de Fotógrafos Independientes’s (Independent Photographers Association, AFI) magazine Punto de Vista (1981–1990) and the two Anuarios fotográficos edited by the AFI in 1981 and 1982. I also analyze two collaborative photographic projects: Ediciones económicas de la fotografía chilena (1983) (Affordable Editions of Chilean Photography), and El pan nuestro de cada día (1986), a book edited collectively by photographers Óscar Navarro, Claudio Pérez, Paulo Slachevsky, and Carlos Tobar.

Introduction

The introduction presents the book’s primary concepts: depth of field, expanding field, photographic practices. It considers the work of critics such as Rosalind Krauss, Nelly Richard, John Tagg, Susan Sontag, and Ariella Azoulay. It begins by explaining the depth of field; then, it analyses the mechanisms devised by the military and officialist media to control the visual field and the depth of field. Two publications produced by the military after the coup (Libro Blanco, Chile Ayer Hoy) are considered. The analysis underscores the prominence photography had in the fabrication of cover-ups and in the consolidation of the military message. In the second part, the terms "expanding field" and "photographic practice" are explained and the significance of the documentary mode is emphasized. I reconsider key critical formulations that emerged in the Chilean cultural field in the mid-seventies that were inspired by the incorporation of photography into artistic practices, but that were nevertheless dismissive of documentary practices that did not emerge within the artistic field. In the last part, I introduce the organizations and the different photographic practices they devised to disseminate their denunciatory work, challenge the dictatorship, and counter the spread of cover-ups and misinformation by the military and officialist media.

Photography Off Limits

This chapter considers how photojournalists for independent magazines resisted and even mocked military censorship under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Whenever these publications became too blatant in their criticism of the dictatorship, DINACOS responded with stricter forms of censorship, culminating in a total ban on images in 1984. The 1984 ban, which affected the magazines Análisis, Apsi, and Cauce and the newspaper Fortín Mapocho, prompted editors to devise ways not only to convey what the censored, absent images would have depicted, but also to make visible the violence intrinsic in the ban itself. Even though they did remove the actual photographs, they kept referring to them as if they were visible on the surface of the page. The chapter also considers protests carried out in opposition to the ban and Pinochet.