09 Mar “Memory Bank”: Tongoy High School Unveils Innovative Installation Intertwining Art, Science, and Coastal Identity
“Memory Bank”: Tongoy High School Unveils Innovative Installation Intertwining Art, Science, and Coastal Identity
After a year of collaborative work between the SECOS Millennium Institute and the educational community of Liceo Carmen Rodríguez, a unique installation was unveiled that uses ceramics and augmented reality to recover the socio-ecological knowledge of the territory.
With emotion, pride, and a strong sense of territorial belonging, the Liceo Carmen Rodríguez of Tongoy inaugurated on December 12 the mural-sculpture “Memory Bank: Knowledge and Stories of Tongoy,” an artistic and scientific installation that synthesizes a full year of collaborative work between the school community and the SECOS Millennium Institute in Coastal Socio-Ecology. The piece—composed of ceramic scallops crafted from local clays—collects memories, knowledge, and reflections about the sea, biodiversity, and the social history of this coastal territory in northern Chile.
The project was led by SECOS researcher Fernanda Oyarzún, as part of the initiative Times of Muralism: Socio-Ecological Heritage and Memory, and was developed throughout the year with the participation of more than 90 students and teachers from the school. Through workshops, field trips, and hands-on activities, students explored their territory from multiple perspectives: marine biodiversity and the environment, aquaculture and local gastronomy, and the social, cultural, and historical narratives that have shaped Tongoy.
“Working with local clays was key to connecting with the territory at a sensory level and with the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous cultures such as the Diaguita or the El Molle culture,” explains Oyarzún. “It also helped students understand that ceramics was one of humanity’s earliest technologies and that it can dialogue with contemporary technologies such as augmented reality.”
A Creative Process Rooted in the Land
One of the project’s initial milestones was a participatory mapping exercise with second-year high school students, where students and teachers identified meaningful places, family stories, productive practices, and socio-environmental changes along the coastline. This work was directly integrated into the school curriculum, demonstrating how science can connect with everyday experiences and local knowledge.
“In that exercise we saw how students began to feel empowered, recognizing how much they already knew through their own experiences: where they fish, which species they know, family stories, or changes they have observed in the territory,” says Oyarzún. “That base of knowledge is incredibly rich, and the project helped validate it, expand it, and connect it with science, art, and school subjects.”
The installation consists of a series of ceramic “scallops,” modeled by the students themselves using clay pastes prepared from materials collected in the Elqui and Tongoy areas. Each piece functions as a container of information: on their surfaces, students represented local landscapes, biodiversity and the environment, aquaculture and gastronomy, and local history and culture—linking arts and science curricula with the students’ immediate reality.
The process later moved into direct material engagement with the territory. The school community collected local clays, learned how to prepare ceramic pastes, and produced molds of scallops, an emblematic species of Tongoy. Each piece was then intervened by the students with words, symbols, and stories engraved on its surface, transforming every scallop into a fragment of collective memory.
“We could see how knowledge became embodied and tangible: recognizing wetland birds, the shapes of flowers from the desierto florido, or reconstructing what Tongoy’s old railway once looked like,” Oyarzún adds. “It also revealed an enormous need and capacity for creative expression. There were moments of complete silence in the classroom, with students fully concentrated on creating.”
The final installation was designed and assembled through a co-creative process involving students, teachers, and a school guardian and local artist, Juan Pablo Fuentes, who built the iron anchoring system inspired by the bollards of the pier—those points where boats are tied. This detail is significant, reinforcing the symbolic link between the artwork and the maritime life that defines Tongoy.
Recognition of a Legacy
During the handover ceremony, teachers and school staff walked through the installation, reading the stories inscribed on the scallops and recognizing in them fragments of their own experiences and territorial memory. The event also included a recognition of Perla Araya, principal of Liceo Carmen Rodríguez, who will retire next year, for her ongoing support of the art and science initiatives developed together with SECOS over the past years.
“This work reflects the everyday connection of our educational community with its natural and maritime environment,” said Araya. “It is about gathering with our own hands the clay that has shaped Tongoy’s history—from Indigenous peoples to today—beneath the same ground and in front of the same waters our students observe.”
The principal also emphasized the educational value of the project and the collaboration between teachers and researchers.
“This mural is a collective memory that integrates science, art, and technical-professional education—from aquaculture to gastronomy—with a vision of progress and respect for the environment.”
Although the installation has already been officially presented to the school community, a major re-inauguration is planned for March 2025. During that event, the anchoring system will be refined and a plaque activating the augmented reality component will be installed. At that moment, the students who participated in the process—already back in classes—will be able to see their works fully installed and operating with augmented reality and a soundscape component, consolidating a permanent space for reflection on the relationship between the sea, science, and culture.