This symposium Chile's Design Stories: A Sociopolitical Journey to Modernity (organized by Chile's Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage in collaboration with the School of Art & Design History & Theory) brings together diverse perspectives to offer a historical overview of Chile’s cultural legacy and its connection to Latin American modernity. These reflections are centered on Chilean works featured in the exhibition Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980, currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art.

Drawing from this collection of objects, authors, processes, and materials—as well as their political and intellectual contexts—the presentations will unveil a series of critical narratives about the relationship between design and modernity in Chile. These discussions will lay the groundwork for exploring methodologies to construct design histories through an analytical and contextualized lens.

The symposium will feature presentations by design scholars Igor Fracalossi (Universidad Finis Terrae), Rita Hurtado (Universidad de Santiago), Fernando Portal (Universidad de las Américas), Tamara Poblete (University of Amsterdam), and Rodrigo Vera (Universidad de Chile).