What do you think our collective future looks like? What issues, stories, or formats help us connect with this? These are the questions behind the new version of Creative Territories, a decentralized program to encourage Chilean creation run by the Teatro a Mil Foundation since 2021, and a new way of tapping into the diversity of the artistic realities that exist in our country.

It features groups and creators from all over the country, with the exception of the Metropolitan Region, who premiere the artistic projects that are a result of group curations in each region. Their aim is to explore new ways of collaborating, while highlighting the importance of an artistic ecosystem that is in constant flux.

The creations in this, the second edition, include an important live component: 14 plays will be performed for free to the public at different venues in each territory and one will be premiered digitally on Teatroamil.tv, also for free.

Another common denominator of these plays is that they fuse together different styles and disciplines, pushing the boundaries of theater, dance, contemporary circus, documentary cinema, and the visual arts, among others.

The issues behind these creations suggest what the future could be like, paradoxically doing this, in some cases, by going back to the past. Rediscovering our ancestry and roots, the environment and territories’ rituals and identities seem to be key issues today and the path we must travel down to be able to imagine and build a possible future.

Although they have their own storylines, several of these pieces are inspired by literature.

The mortuary culture of the Chinchorro mummies, the love letters between Gabriela Mistral and Doris Dana, the abandoned places that are part of a city’s identity and whose value needs to be highlighted and the lack of water in the region of Valparaíso are some examples of the hard-hitting Creative Territories 2022 program.

This year, Creative Territories incorporated a support component for staging, which accompanies the development of the projects from their genesis. The latter, in alliance with the Regional Training Program in Scenic Design, led by Daniela Portillo, Catalina Devia, and Cristóbal Ramos.

This is an invitation to travel to the future from a challenging present.