Roberto Unterladstaetter - Paisaje 1 - Fotografía Digital - 2009

(from Neil Suchak's piece on the influence of the maritime loss on Bolivian contemporary art)

Unterladstaetter portrays the malaise caused by the loss of the sea, which has had a profound economic, cultural and psychological impact on the country. This feeling of bitterness towards the sea —and more so towards the Chileans that stole it from Bolivia— is so pervasive that it was immortalised in the title of Eguino's film about the maritime loss, Amargo Mar. Animosity between both countries continues, from Bolivia taking Chile to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to football matches where Chileans fans taunt the bolivian crowd by singing ‘vamos a la playa’ ('let's go to the beach').

But the bitter feelings extend beyond the loss itself, and spill over into the way the topic is hijacked and appropriated with ulterior motives. As Unterladstaetter tells me, ‘The topic of the sea always resurfaces as a smoke curtain during moments of crisis, and the parties in power always dream with “solving” the issue to become enthroned as eternal heroes. As you can see, I now realise the issue affects me, as I already start to show resentment for some reason’.

How has the loss of the sea influenced Bolivian contemporary art?

To those of us who come from a country surrounded by the sea, the plight of a landlocked nation, like Bolivia, is almost unfathomable. To us, the sea is simply a banal blue mass at the edge of a beach; something that represents very little. For Bolivians, however, the sea has a very different meaning. The sea represents a void, and a stretch of coastline endures to this day as a painful yearning.

That much can be gleaned from the events surrounding the Day of the Sea commemoration (every 23rd of March), or by viewing the giant poster in La Paz’s Plaza Avaroa —outside the Ministry of Defence— which reifies President Evo Morales’ stance on Bolivia’s “sovereign right to access the sea”.

In this context, it would only seem natural that Bolivia’s relationship with the ocean —which evokes such strong emotions— would transcend the politics and rhetoric of Bolivian-Chilean exchanges to permeate the world of Bolivian art and culture. Whether it is through painting, photography or video depictions of the Bolivian coastline, allusions to the sea are everywhere present in contemporary Bolivian art.

It might appear to outsiders that Bolivia is really no different from any other landlocked country. But it seems that it is one thing to have no sea at all and another to have had it taken away. When asked why other countries —such as Paraguay— do not have such a romantic relationship with the sea, Alvarado states that this is “perhaps because they’ve never had it”. You can’t, after all, mourn something which you never had in the first place.

The sea may not be the only element steering Bolivian contemporary art in a more melancholic direction. According to Alvarado there also exists a deep sadness ingrained within Andean culture. Indeed, the idea that living in the dry, cold, and at-times inhospitable environment of the Altiplano has psychological repercussions of this nature, has been hypothesised by several Bolivian authors from Arguedas to Francovich. Coupled with the indoctrination-like nature of Bolivian education system surrounding the maritime loss, the result is a sentiment of nostalgia, melancholy and helplessness which finds various manifestations in Bolivian contemporary art.

With the Bolivian Day of the Sea quickly approaching it is easy to see Bolivia’s relation with the sea as a largely political matter. However, the loss of the sea has had a far reaching impact on Bolivian culture and contemporary art. The rise of new media, such as video and digital drawing, have given artist new ways to depict this feeling.

“What’s past is present” says Alvarado—and this definitely seems to be the case in Bolivian contemporary art. While it may be difficult for a citizen of a country surrounded by water to even comprehend the Bolivian attitude towards the sea, the contemporary art scene here certainly brings you as close as you can possibly get can to understanding it.

NARDA ALVARADO

“In general I would say that [the relationship between Bolivia and the sea] is very sentimental” says Narda Alvarado, one of Bolivia’s preeminent contemporary artists. Alvarado has employed the sea as a motif in a variety of her works, from digital drawings to video. This is most notably the case in the video she made showing members of the armed forces being given a bucket of water from the ocean, a gesture that emulates the sense of loss and yearning for the sea in Bolivia.

When talking about the representation of the sea in Bolivian art, Alvarado states: “I don’t think artists do it on purpose, I think it comes naturally. We have such a strong feelings on this topic that we feel that we need to do something with them”. Indeed, looking at the paintings, photographs and videos of local artists it becomes evident that much of Bolivian contemporary art about the sea is driven more by emotion than by an attempt to depict the ocean or assert a claim. This art is not based on politics, but on sentimentality.

RAQUEL SCHWARTZ

This is certainly the case in Raquel Schwartz’s art piece El mar no existe (which in English translates to 'The Sea Does Not Exist'). In her piece, these words are illuminated against a backdrop in a sea-blue luminescent glow. It is a piece that conveys a dry and distant sense which the ocean now evokes for Bolivians, painting a bleak picture of the emotions felt by Bolivians when considering their loss. It captures the alienation caused by a sea which is always there, but always out of reach.

There is a sense of helplessness in Schwartz’s work that is expressed through a portrayal of insularity. Her work depicts a country that has been isolated from the world as a result of its landlocked nature, a country that can be seen as an island surrounded by an ocean of land. When asked how the loss of the sea has affected her work, Schwartz replies: “it doesn’t affect my artistic work, it nourishes it”.

ALEJANDRA ALARCÓN

In Bolivia, there is a culture centered around picking a beauty queen for almost every part of Bolivian life and, as Alejandra Alracón’s art shows, the sea is no exception. Alarcón created a video segment surrounding the Miss Pacífico beauty pageant that highlights the Bolivian nostalgia for its lost coastline. It shows young female contestants dancing to the tune of a military march titled Recuperemos Nuestro Mar (Let’s Reclaim Our Sea).

Through the implied superficiality of the event, Alarcón’s lo-fi video representation seemingly shows the popular trivialisation of this historical event, traditionally construed as solemn and tragic. Her work also shows how this longing has permeated every last sphere of popular culture. As Alarcón tells BX: “is as if the sea represents all that is missing. I wonder: If we had a sea, where would it go, that longing for everything we don’t have?”

ROBERTO UNTERLADSTAETTER

Another Bolivian artist, Roberto Unterladstaetter, has managed to capture a different side of Bolivian emotion towards the sea. Unterladstaetter’s image of a human arm extending across a picture of the sea in order to raise a middle finger to the coastline discharges the pent-up resentment Bolivians feel over this historical episode.

Unterladstaetter portrays the malaise caused by the loss of the sea, which has had a profound economic, cultural and psychological impact on the country. This feeling of bitterness towards the sea —and more so towards the Chileans that stole it from Bolivia— is so pervasive that it was immortalised in the title of Antono Eguino's film about the maritime loss, Amargo Mar. Animosity between both countries continues, from Bolivia taking Chile to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to football matches where Chileans fans taunt the bolivian crowd by singing ‘vamos a la playa’ ('let's go to the beach').

But the bitter feelings extend beyond the loss itself, and spill over into the way the topic is hijacked and appropriated with ulterior motives. As Unterladstaetter tells me, ‘The topic of the sea always resurfaces as a smoke curtain during moments of crisis, and the parties in power always dream with “solving” the issue to become enthroned as eternal heroes. As you can see, I now realise the issue affects me, as I already start to show resentment for some reason’.

Three New Developments Promise Seaside Living to Bolivians Who Are Willing to Pay for It

‘In five years, there will be a city there,’ Francisco Cibrián tells me from behind his desk, his eyes glassy with a mix of admiration and exhaustion.‘Right now, it’s difficult to imagine because there’s not much of a road to get there. But the climate is cool and the landscape is beautiful. It’s perfect’, says Cibrián, who is an athletic, young-looking man with a mullet.

Francisco Cibrián is the general manager of the Puerto Esmeralda project, a $40 million housing development that will soon rise on 200 hectares of virgin soil in Urubó, right across the Rio Pirai from where we sit in his office in Equipetrol, Santa Cruz.

Puerto Esmeralda is no port at all. It is one of three new developments in Urubó that will include a man-made lagoon (otherwise referred to as ‘the sea’), along with a stretch of sand around it (read: ‘beach’). It is an ambitious idea, one that has been executed with success in neighboring countries like Chile and Argentina, as well as across the world. The hope is that projects like these will put the city of Santa Cruz on the map as a holiday spot on an international level. Cibrián tells me the project’s land has already been sold to people in the United States and Switzerland, who plan to use their property in Puerto Esmeralda as a second home, or a ‘beach house’.

The idea of living by the ocean isn’t only being marketed toward wealthy foreigners. As the country goes through one of its best economic moments in its 189-year history, many Bolivians are coming to new riches. The members of these rising classes are eager to show what they have. One outlet is real estate. The rapid growth of the newly rich —not just in Santa Cruz but in Cochabamba and La Paz as well— is the reason expensive developments seem like a good idea, especially if they can deliver the ultimate prize: the ocean.

‘The housing boom here in Santa Cruz has been going on for five years’, Cibrián told me. ‘It’s been happening for so long that people are thinking, “It’s going to burst, it’s going to burst. It can’t be that expensive”. But prices keep rising. And the reality is that there is a demand.’

‘People in La Paz and Cochabamba want to have beach houses. And they can get in their cars and have a vacation right here’, he continued.

Unlike its competitors, the Puerto Esmeralda project is proudly local. All the investment comes from Bolivia. The owner, Pedro Antonio Gutierrez, is a cruceño and one of the most powerful men in the city.

When I visited their office, I was struck by its lack of distinction. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it was located in a low, whitewashed building with abundant plantings of palm trees and other tropical plants in the yard. Inside, it was sparse, with the exception of framed advertisements, showing caucasian families laughing on the beach or sailing in Caribbean-clear water. I couldn’t help but think I had seen the same pictures in advertisements for Club Med in the Bahamas.

Outside his office, Cibrián showed me a scale model of what Puerto Esmeralda will look like when it is completed in 2016. ‘I have heard of people going on trips to places like Punta Cana for their weddings’, he said. ‘But here we have our own island...I’m not saying it will be like Punta Cana, because the ocean is the ocean. But the option is there’.

The option is there indeed, and developers are betting that rich Bolivians will take it instead of travelling abroad to go to the beach, or investing in a second home in another country. So far, it seems that they have placed their bets correctly. The culture of consumption in Santa Cruz is vigorous: fancy clothes, fancy cars, fancy houses. As the Puerto Esmeralda saleswoman in La Paz described their target clientele: ‘There they care about their looks, about being tan, about their bodies’, she said, as she outlined an hourglass figure in the air in front of me.

Santa Cruz is the most populous department in Bolivia, inhabited by over three million people. And the city is growing—fast. Last year, Santa Cruz was by far the largest consumer of cement in Bolivia, accounting for 32% of all the cement used in the country, a testament to the construction boom it is undergoing. The city is expanding outwards in all directions from the casco viejo, which is run down by comparison. Anillos are continuously added to the city’s system of concentric highways. In outer areas of the city, a block can contain as many as three construction sites for condominiums or apartments.

I came to Santa Cruz to see this massive increase in construction for myself. According to the construction council of Santa Cruz, $500 million were invested in new construction projects in the city in 2013. No one I talked to seemed able to explain where the money or the interest was coming from. I heard rumors that Bolivians who got rich off of the country's drug trade were deciding to invest in construction projects to launder their money. But this is development in name only. Some new buildings do not even have sidewalks in front of them, as if they are for show, to be admired and then passed by.

In equal measure to active projects that lined the avenues —with billboards projecting what the buildings will look like and imploring passersby to start buying— I saw many half-completed, abandoned husks of concrete in Santa Cruz, looming above their younger brothers, netting waving in the wind as a warning of what was to come.

The utopic Urubó is not immune to these problems. I visited a house in Urubó Green, a gated community, that had been under construction for three years. There was no sign that any workers had been there recently. The half-formed garage was flooded from the past week’s rain, and broken bricks lined the floors. It was a shell, nothing but walls and piping. No one knew when it would be finished. ‘These people are so rich, they keep changing their minds about what they want the house to look like, and the builders have to re-do it’, I was told. The perfect house seemed to exist only in theory.

When I arrived in Santa Cruz, I was surprised to discover that Puerto Esmeralda was not the only project centered around a an illusory ocean. Two more, Playa Turquesa and Mar Adentro, were announced at around the same time. All three feature apartments on the ‘beach’, as well as lots that go down in price as they move away from the waterfront.

Not much distinguishes one project from the other, despite what their marketers say. Playa Turquesa, which will enclose the largest lagoon out of the three (at 12 hectares, or 120,000 square metres), and Mar Adentro —the smallest— are being built by the same company, Crystal Lagoons. Crystal Lagoons is a Chilean contractor responsible for 160 similar projects worldwide. They are notable for having built the lagoon at San Alfonso del Mar in Chile, which for a time held the world record for the largest in the world. The company is currently working on a $7 billion lagoon development in Dubai that will set the new record at 40 hectares. It is due to be completed by 2020. Until another project of this magnitude comes along, Playa Turquesa will lay claim to be the second largest.

The three projects, of course, step on each other’s toes somewhat. Although two are owned by the same company (as suggested by their brochures which feature the same model in identical goggles, flippers and bathing suit), there is still friendly competition. “We usually don’t like to talk about the others”, Cibrián told me.

The biggest irony is, perhaps, that the Bolivian ‘beach’ experience will be provided by a company from Chile, the country responsible for annexing Bolivia’s coastline following the War of the Pacific in 1879. According to the World Resources Institute, Chile is number five on the list of countries with the longest coastline, whereas Bolivia is (tied for) last with 0 Km of coastline. Bolivians still hold a grudge against their neighbor to the west for this aggression that has left them without a beach or access to the ocean. It has long existed in the realm of fantasy for many Bolivians to have a beach of their own. As it reads on the Crystal Lagoons website, they ‘can transform any destination into an idyllic beach paradise’. That is what they are doing in Santa Cruz.

I became interested in the Puerto Esmeralda project for this reason. Announced in September of 2013, it will be built further to the northwest than most of the development so far executed in Urubó. The plan is to sell 1,400 lots that vary in size as well as distance from the central lagoon, which will have a surface area of about 7 hectares. For those who are willing to spend even more, apartments are available in a dozen buildings directly overlooking the water, which includes a scuba diving area, man-made island, restaurant boardwalk and, of course, 20,000 square meters of ‘beach’.

The cheapest lots in Puerto Esmeralda start around $30,000, and apartments start at $60,000. ‘Nowadays 30,000 dollars, many people can afford. There really isn't any land that’s cheaper than what we are selling. They have raised prices here, but it seems that there are people who are still paying, no?’ Cibrián told me.

Pre-sales for Puerto Esmeralda started in October of last year, and about 30% of the lots are already sold. This, in a country where the average income is about $7,000 a year, and a city where 72% of families cannot afford a place to live. With these figures in mind, it was hard to understand who was buying.

With newfound riches, the people of Santa Cruz are constructing a fantasy world in Urubó. Here, Bolivia is not poor, but rich. And it has an ocean. Even the developers responsible seem to be a part of this fantasy. ‘We can’t speak about class anymore in Santa Cruz. Everyone has money’, insists Claudio de La Rosa, Head of Marketing for Playa Turquesa.

The problem is that at present this world only exists in their collective imagination. None of the three developments has yet to start construction. Nothing is there yet, not even a sign. The 14 Km road to Puerto Esmeralda from the Urubó bridge has yet to be built. Even if it were built, though, the road would lead to nothing but grass. Yet 30% of it has already been sold. As has 70% of Playa Turquesa.

Can Bolivia’s small upper middle class sustain development on such a large scale? Are there enough of them to buy up the whole beach?

Francisco Cibrián thinks so, or at least he hopes. Money from pre-sales is necessary for the project to begin at all. And the hope is that Urubó will keep growing, until Puerto Esmeralda no longer seems far away from the city. There are plans to locate a hospital, a hotel, a school, nearby. ‘It will be its own city, its own island. Sort of like Manhattan.’ This is the dream of the newly rich in Santa Cruz: to create a new world, closed off to anyone who cannot afford it.