Mänk’áčen: Camera Genealogy Unveiled

Opening Statement

Sergio Valenzuela-Escobedo’s latest show, Mänk’áčen (Revision 6), opened at Mumbai’s Dilip Piramal Art Gallery, part of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. The exhibition follows the artist’s long-term research into the camera’s genealogy and its relationship with pre-photographic modes of visuality in southern Chile and Argentina.

The Origin of a Phrase

The project began when Valenzuela-Escobedo heard the term “Toumayacha Alakana” at the Yagan Usi Museum. The phrase, attributed to the Fuegians, translates as “to look with a veiled head.” The artist found the paradox of covering one’s face to observe another compelling, and it became a poetic entry point for his investigation.

19th-Century Expeditions and the First Camera in Tierra del Fuego

Valenzuela-Escobedo’s research turned to the French Scientific Mission to Cape Horn (1882-1883), which brought the first camera to Tierra del Fuego to photograph the transit of Venus. Initially, the box produced no images; over time it began to capture photographs, yet the first subjects never saw their own likeness. They only witnessed an operator under a cloth observing them for six to eight minutes.

The Camera as a Black Box

Drawing on Vilém Flusser’s theory, Valenzuela-Escobedo treats the camera as a black box-an apparatus that operates according to a hidden program. He blends the mechanical function of the camera with cosmological ideas, framing it as a form of “mystical mechanics” that both the photographer and the subject encounter.

Colonial Anxieties and the ‘Savage’ Image

The artist juxtaposes early photographic use with the colonial construction of the “savage” in relation to indigenous peoples. He argues that the camera’s arrival created a meeting of modern and indigenous visual technologies, and that Europeans projected fears-such as the belief the camera could steal souls-onto these communities. This projection helped establish the symbolic and monetary value of the photographs.

Diagrammatic Narrative and Collaboration

Central to Mänk’áčen is a diagram that shifts and evolves as the project develops. Valenzuela-Escobedo stresses that diagrams are dynamic, not static, and that collaboration with local communities-most notably the Lafkenche Mapuche of Puerto Saavedra-shapes the narrative. He spent 2017 in the community without a camera, listening to their visual traditions and participating in spiritual ceremonies like the nguillatún.

Digital Archives and Contemporary Preservation

In its current iteration, the exhibition examines how photographic archives are produced, preserved, and curated on networked digital platforms. Valenzuela-Escobedo warns that the state’s selective preservation can erase histories, and he urges attention to the future of stories on Instagram and other online spaces.

Relevance to the Bicentenary and Ancient Optical Devices

The show arrives as France prepares to celebrate the bicentenary of photography. Valenzuela-Escobedo counters the official narrative by highlighting pre-European origins of the camera, citing the Nimrud lens-an eighth-century BCE concave lens found in Iraq-as an early optical device. He also references Hercule Florence’s Brazilian experiments as part of this early history.

Exhibition Catalogue and Collaborators

The exhibition’s catalogue lists the works in fixtures and details the artist’s collaborators in squad.