I am Carola Ureta Marín, a visual communicator & designer based in London, specialising in editorial design, exhibition projects and information representation. My practice aims to contribute to communication processes, to make them more effective and understandable for everyone. If an idea can be coded into texts and then translated into different languages… what if that same idea cand also translated into shapes, colours, temperature, music or movement among others?
In my career I have carried out projects linked to cultural development, artistic projects and historical and scientific research. In 2021, I was part of the curatorial team of the Chile Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2021, entitled ‘Tectonic Resonances’, which won the medal for the most outstanding overall contribution.
This year I presented my first solo exhibition in London, at Cromwell Place entitled "Re-Creating Memory: An entropic reading of the city noise". In September I was invited to "Chicharra: Sound Research Festival" in Spain and in January I participated of the Singapore ART-ACT Festival 2023, where I showed a short film in the city centre on a 15-metre screen. Recently, I worked designing for the London Design Festival and currently I am working at the Royal College of Art for the "Ocean & Cities: Grand Challenge 2023-24".
My current work brings together my studies in Design, MA Cultural Management and MA Visual Communication with my experience in graphic design, to COMMUNICATE. My approach advocates constant experimentation, freedom of play through art&science, collaborative work, and the generation of projects that contribute to the improvement of democratic culture and environmental awareness. I consider Design as a powerful tool for encoding and decoding information to favour communication and understanding between human and more-than-human forces [nature, technology, galaxies, materialities, animals, batteries, water, among others].
I have taken part in international congresses on history and design studies: Buenos Aires (2015); Taipei (2016); Medellín (2018); Barcelona (2018); New York (2020); Quebec (2021); Melbourne (2022).
Today's world urgently requires new ways of making, presenting, imagining, building projects, services and experiences for various entities, whether human or more-than-human. As we handle more tools, we will be able to make communication more diverse and thus open up knowledge.
STUDIES
MA Visual Communicator | Royal College of Art | 2022
MA Cultural Management | Universidad de Chile | 2018
BA Design | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile | 2012
CONTACT
Tectonic Resonances | London Design Biennale | 2021
‘Tectonic Resonances: From the user-centered design to a planet-oriented design’, was the Chilean pavilion that participated on the third edition of the LDB, responding to the international call made by its artistic director Es Devlin: Resonances.
The pavilion takes a close look at the natural sonic properties of the Andean rocks as a gateway into thinking about the geological and political forces in contemporary Design. The outcome presented is the staging of a primary and ancient action: hitting stones to create an expressive sound, not very different from what human beings would have been doing thousands of years ago at the beginning of the Anthropocene.
We use this simple action to connect with critical issues of contemporary design: the local and material consequences of extractivism in the global south, our fast and technological modes of life in the context of geological times, and the active power of non–human forces. We hope that promoting a tectonic thinking of contemporary design can contribute to a new radical ethic of coexistence. We invite the visitors of the Chilean Pavilion to interact with the rocks and engage with the stories displayed throughout the room.
Curators | Marcos Chilet, Carola Ureta Marín, Martín Tironi, Pablo Hermansen
Designers | Macarena Irarrázaval, Valentina Aliaga, Sistema Simple Studio, Design System International
Supported by | Ministerio de las Culturas, las Artes y el Patrimonio, la Dirección de Asuntos Culturales (Dirac) del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile, ProChile, Embajada de Chile en Reino Unido, British Council, Anglo Chilean Society
UNITED KINGDOM
The City as Text | Digital Memory Archive | 2020
[La Ciudad como Texto] is the central project from which many others emerge, arising as a response to the urgency of preserving the memory of a particular moment in Chile, after the threat of censorship by the government in charge. On 18 October 2019, Chile experienced what was called the “Social Uprising”: one of the biggest political crises in its history, a mega-crisis.
This digital platform corresponds to a new type of memory archive that allows us to walk the streets of Santiago, tracing the writings on the walls, as an echo of social demands. The recording was made a few days before the government whitewashed and erased this historical moment.
2.4 km were recorded and 136 photographs were used to reconstruct the route from the epicentre of the demonstration to the government palace. At the same time, 50 people of different field of knowledge and ages were invited to write a short text, choosing a message, a graffiti, an image or a corner of the route. All texts are available on the website by clicking the *. Currently this platform has more than 70 collaborators and a team led and designed by me, including a photographer, web programmer, communication department, translators, lawyer, design assistant, among others.
As a follow-up to the digital platform that emerged in pandemic and is used by multiple universities and schools as study material, a print publication was designed. The first bilingual edition (SP-EN) was published in 2020, presenting the project, the design phases and the reconstruction of the route as a heritage archive. The second edition, which included new contributions and a whole graphic dictionary derived from the analysis of the walls, was launched in 2021. Both books are available for free download.
CHILE
A Statement of Dignity | ART-ACT Fest | 2023
‘A Statement of Dignity: The City as Text’ is a short film directed and created by me in collaboration with animator Marco Fuentes and sound by Amir Bech, presented at Art-Act Festival Singapore. The audiovisual piece is an invitation to walk the streets of Santiago during the crisis of 2019, scanning and decoding the messages on the walls as an echo of social demands. The messages are rescued from the walls, and translated into different languages, focusing on understanding public space as a living entity that responds and manifests itself to societal changes.
The festival is a platform for international collaboration where artists and designers from different disciplines come together. In a world of constant disruption, crisis, and conflict, art becomes a powerful tool to drive change. It gives a space to explore and discuss the problems that affect us as human beings and fosters the generation of innovative and revolutionary ideas.
Venues & Details of the screening:
Ten Square (1 Short St, Singapur 188218) - 10th January 2023
Screen Size: 15x2 meters (3840x480 px)
Media Art Nexus MAN (50 Nanyang Ave, Singapur 639798) - 12th January 2023
Screen Size: 8x14.4 meters (2210x1440 px)
SINGAPORE
Calling Lights
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Calling Lights | Sound Exploration | 2022
‘Calling Lights: The Sound of an Awakening’ is another outcome from 'The City as Text project'. This time the project is guided by the question:
What happens when the visual is not enough?
This work is a tribute to all the eyes lost due to unjustified police shootings during the demonstrations in Chile 2019. More than 400 people suffered eye damage between October 2019 and December 2021 in Chile.
A message using Morse code provided an audiotrack that was set to music by 10 artists from the Chilean diaspora and an Italian collaboration, generating a unique music album. Each time a track is played, the Morse encrypted message is activated as a sign of support for the new generation of blind people in Chile.
UNITED KINGDOM
In an Act of Weaving | Editorial | 2023
Editorial design of the book entitled ’In an Act of Weaving' which is a compilation of five performances made during the festival. This publication goes deep into the five pieces, allowing each artist to explain their work in multiple ways: texts, drawings, poetry, lines, and pictures, among others.
This book is a tribute to all enthusiasts, dance artists and anyone who wants to feel in companionship again. An initiative that is both close and far away, to keep in touch but also create new paths, a platform to ´hold the thread´ together again. A colorful umbrella that began with a festival with dance performances, installations, video works, workshops, and choreographic interventions that then continued throughout the year with Podcasts and a Book publication.
The narrative developed were threads that connect all the dance pieces and that make it possible to weave a common fabric as we go through the book. The threads emerge freely from the photographs, connecting the texts and extending the pages.
SWEDEN
FIDOCS | Documentary Festival | 2018
I was selected to design the complete identity for the International Documentary Festival of Santiago 2018. That year the message of the festival was 'to see is to see again' so I decided to work with miniatures (a universe I am passionate about and have been exploring for a decade) and create different scenarios in common spaces and with objects that we carry every day such as keys, watches, rings, books, eyeglasses, among others. Working with miniatures not only requires a focus to see them (as a camera would), but also a pause to stop and take a good look at them because of their small scale. I designed and set up 10 scenes in a studio where, together with a photographer, we recorded different photographs that eventually became the material for the editorial design of the catalog.
FIDOCS has been configured as the main meeting, dissemination and competition space for non-fiction cinema in Chile and Latin America, dedicated to promoting dialogue, reflection and audience formation around the documentary in a broad sense and in permanent transformation. In this line, the FIDOCS School plays a fundamental role, convening more than fifty film students every year who participate in training activities.
