La Capilla Azul is up & running-- let's keep growing it!

Donation protected

Hello, my name is Dan Cameron, and I’m an art curator and critic based in lower Manhattan, NYC. On Saturday, May 13, 2023, I joined with more than 120 friends and neighbors who had gathered for the grand opening of La Capilla Azul (The Blue Chapel), a small not-for-profit art gallery located in Contuy, a rural community in the Queilen sector of Chiloé, the main island in an archipelago that lies off the southwest coast of Chile. The small wooden church is a 19th century remnant of the construction that accompanied the expansion of the Catholic faith in the region centuries earlier. The most significant result of that growth are the sixteen Chilote churches collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which draw thousands of visitors each year to the archipelago.

With an interior of 7 by 8 meters, La Capilla Azul is far more modest than the UNESCO churches, but it is beloved by the local community. Among those neighbors who attended the May 13 opening was a man who’d been baptized inside, and a woman who’d gotten married there. The chapel’s present owners, photographer Pablo Carvacho and his family, bought it eight years ago from a man who’d purchased it for firewood immediately after it had been deconsecrated. Its main use during the years since the purchase has been to store wool during shearing season, although the plan all along had been to convert it into an exhibition space. Now that La Capilla is open, the gallery not only provides a showcase for artists from Chiloé and elsewhere, but it also serves as an art classroom extension for three nearby rural schools.

Nothing about La Capilla Azul’s inauguration — not the insulation, repair & restoration, new floors, HVAC, lighting system, or website — would have been possible without the GoFundMe I first launched back in March 2022, which thanks o nearly a hundred supporters, succeeded in reaching its goal of $15,000 shortly before our May 13 opening. This happened thanks to the generosity of people like you, whose support over the past three years has made it possible for all of us on Team Capilla Azul to sit down after the opening and develop concrete plans for the future. One thing we've concluded now that we’re open for visitors is that even though there’s every reason to believe that some of our fundraising efforts inside Chile will eventually bear fruit, to date we have opened six exhibitions of new works by a dozen artists, and it has all been possible through private donations. Because La Capilla Azul is now registered as a public charity under the 501c3 section of the U.S. tax code, all cash donations are deductible within the limits of the current tax law.

In the spirit of the same generosity that made the first campaign possible, this new GoFundMe appeal for La Capilla Azul, set at the same level as last year’s, represents a three-part strategy:

On September 16, we opened our second exhibition at the Capilla, featuring the work of two Chilote creators, painter Silvia Rivera and basket-maker Ismenia Duamante, and on January 13, 2024, we opened our third project, a collaboration with NYC-based artist Iván Navarro, and the musician Enrique Millán.
Our Contuy neighbors have requested from the start that if the momentum created by La Capilla’s opening permitted, it would lead to having a place to browse, read and borrow books and other published materials. With that goal in mind, we've begun planning to create a community library adjacent to the Capilla, in hopes of being able to announce this new phase by the end of the year.
Also in May 2024, we presented an exhibition of new work by Sebastián Preece and Anelys Wolf, which was followed in September by Somos Raices, featuring new work by Raquel Aquilar and Voluspa Jarpa.
Just two weeks ago, we opened our most ambitious project to date: Ausencias/Absences, featuring new works made for Capilla Azul by NYC-based artist Alfredo Jaar, and Osvaldo Güineo, who's based on the island of Cailín. The opening festivities were attended by more 200 people, our biggest attendance to date.

If you’ve taken part in other GoFundMe campaigns, you know that every donation is crucial, from $5 or $10 up to $1,500 and more. It took nearly a hundred individual contributors to reach our construction goal of $15,000 over the course of fifteen months, and we're hoping to achieve our new goal in even less time. If you're new to this, the important thing to emphasize is that if you share our belief that art is invaluable for all communities, supporting La Capilla Azul by making a donation today, inviting somebody else to contribute, or both, will make a positive difference for a rural community that is rich in cultural patrimony.

Thank you for letting me share the story of La Capilla Azul, which is really a story about a small corner of the planet in southern Chile, and it's about the limitless potential that each person has to make art, share art, or just enjoy it.