This series is a collection of colour photographs shot on film in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile in 2024. The title comes from La Poderosa Muerte, a song by the Chilean progressive rock band Los Jaivas, based on Pablo Neruda’s poem Alturas de Macchu Picchu, part of his book Canto General.
The series is a photographic record of the “animitas” scattered along the roads of the north, deep in the desert. These small shrines are built by family members at the places where their loved ones died tragically. According to popular belief, the souls of those who die suddenly or violently are condemned to wander. The animitas are created to give these restless souls a place to dwell, a small home where they can remain, be remembered, and perhaps find some form of peace.
In the vast, dry, inhospitable landscape of the Atacama, where almost no life seems able to exist, death leaves its traces everywhere. Yet these small shrines are also signs of life: intimate acts of remembrance, grief, love, and devotion rising from the desert. In a place where life appears almost absent, it is death that makes itself visible.
Patricia Abarca de la Fuente 