Water Community Museum

about the Museum

The Renaico River Community Water Museum collects old documents, generates new narratives, and carries out a series of activities to defend and care for the river itself.

Over the last 15 years, the Renaico River’s current has weakened considerably, mainly due to excess use of water by area logging companies, as well as private citizens who have dammed it off for irrigation purposes. It has experienced other environmental threats as well.

At one time, the Renaico River was a source of fish, economic sustenance, and stories for human and non-human beings; it continues to be a source of water for them. And at this moment, the community is rising up to defend the river.

The museum was founded in 2016 in the town of Renaico, in Chile’s Araucanía Region. This institution highlights the place of the Renaico River as the community’s cultural and natural heritage; its waters are the patrimony of all persons.* With the creation of the museum’s collection, our hope is to strengthen the affective ties between the inhabitants of the town of Renaico and their river, with all the commitment to its care and defense that those ties should entail.

The Community Water Museum was opened at the banks of the Renaico River. The opening included music bands performaces and a live painted mural, alongside with the exhibition of photographs and the screening of the documentary “Save the Renaico River” and the two collective actions “a Wave” and “Messages in bottles”. The museum’s collection was created by neighborhood associations, youth groups, local artists, and schools.

Once it opened, presentations about it were made at universities, cultural events, and international conferences with other associations focused on the defense of water resources. The museum does not yet have a physical location, but this website offers information about its collections, as well as research on the Renaico River and community-based activities.

*Note: This is not a legal designation.

some pictures of the Museum’s opening:

Renaico commune

by Nicolás Fuentes

Renaico is located in the southern part of central Chile, in the province of Malleco, which itself is part of the Araucanía Region. Renaico is the northernmost district of the Araucanía Region, on the border with the neighboring region to the north, known as Biobío.

In the past, when the Mapuche people freely inhabited the area, including the banks of the Renaico River, the river was known as Tolpán. This word came from two words in the Mapuche language of Mapudungun: thol, meaning “in front of,” or “facing,” and pangui, the native word for the pumas that inhabited the area. During the so-called “Occupation of Araucanía” in the 1860s, the soldier Cornelio Saavedra—who led this genocidal campaign against the Mapuche—tried to build a fort on the banks of the Renaico River. But it wasn’t until January 23, 1884 that the town as we know it today was founded, thanks to the rail line that was constructed between Renaico and Victoria, during the presidential administration of Domingo Santa María (which lasted from 1881 to 1886).

The town has an official population of 10,000 people, and its economy depends primarily on cattle, agriculture, logging, and the cultivation of fruits and vegetables.

Activities

What follows is a selection of the different activities that the Save the Renaico River Social Collective has carried out, as well as different events where it has represented the Renaico River Community Water Museum.

Cultural Activities and Wall Painting: Renaico River Day, December 10, 2022

Hundreds of people participated in the seventh Renaico River Day, on the ninth anniversary of the foundation of the Save the Renaico River Social Collective.

Artists from Valparaíso, Concepción, Kiriwe, Angol, Los Ángeles, and Collipulli painted walls along the shores of the river. Different musicians and bands also played that day, and there was a fair with stands by different small businesses in the area.

Our organization is thankful to each and every person who participated in this event: artists, businesses, groups, and individuals. We’re particularly thankful to the Colhue Veterinary Office, which offered free treatment to local pets.

We send hugs to you all. ¡Amulepe taiñ weichan! (May our struggle continue!)

Muddy, dirty, damp: International Conference on the Stewardship of Water, Artistic Practices, and Communities. February 12 and 13, 2022.

This digital conference presented different international art projects related to the protection of endangered bodies of water. It served as a platform for people to exchange ideas and experiences around three central themes: management, politics, and the representations of bodies of water in a global context. The projects presented had taken place in Chile, Colombia, Germany, India, Japan, Palestine, and the USA. Session attendees talked about artistic practices, forms of collaboration, and challenges to protecting bodies of water. The conference was organized by Citizen Art Days, an association of artists headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Citizen Art Days offers a platform that brings together citizens, artists, and city dwellers to use artistic strategies to resolve concrete problems of public space.

Here is an English-language link to the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqVf0Hi-KPo&t=1040s

For more information, see http://mudconference.citizenartdays.de/.

Renaico River Birdwatching and Cleanup. June 19, 2021.

Daniel Rivera, a field ornithologist, led a birdwatching excursion along the Renaico River. 

A group of people also carried out an organized cleanup of along the riverbanks. A total of 20 people joined, including the leaders and the participants. Attendance was limited by restrictions on public gatherings due to the pandemic. The event ended with a small concert.

Museum of Democracy. April 17-June 13, 2021

The Save the Renaico River Social Collective and the artist Marcela Moraga presented the Community Water Museum as part of an exhibition entitled “Museum of Democracy” in Berlin. The “Museum of Democracy” is a fictional institution presenting the conservation, exhibition, and use of democracy as if democracy were a relic of the past. In collaboration with artists, theorists, activists, museum curators and others, the museum presented 25 works that seek to preserve, interpret, display, and imagine different relics of the past in the context of a post-democratic society. The Museum of Democracy was located in the art space of the nGbK (neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst) Association.

For more information, see https://museodelademocracia.net/en/about/.

Environmental Education in Renaico. Youth of Renaico for the Environment. 2019

The Collective carried out environmental education sessions in local Renaico schools. They presented on challenges to the local environment, as well as on the importance of native flora and fauna. This took place in collaboration with Rapaces Nahuelbuta, an organization from the city of Angol that works with birds of prey (in compliance with Chile’s Agricultural and Cattle Service, known by its Spanish-language acronym SAG). Rapaces Nahuelbuta has raised awareness about these birds of prey among children and young people by spreading the art of falconry—raising, domesticating, and training falcons and other similar species.