Border Agency Fire Forest

How do fire , forests, and landscape politics intersect? In this Smart Forests Radio episode, we speak with Border Agency (Agencia de Borde), a research and art collective, about their latest exhibition Bosques de Fuego (Fire Forest) at the Museo de La Solidaridad Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile .

We discuss the role of eucalyptus plantations in reshaping the Chilean landscape, and consider the power dynamics involved in cultivating forests. We also explore the opaque borders between monocultural and wild landscapes, and look at how collaboration can open up different ways of inhabiting and caring for landscapes.

Border Agency was founded and is directed by Sebastián Melo, Rosario Montero and Paula Salas, and works internationally with bases in Santiago de Chile and London, UK.

Interviewer: Jennifer Gabrys

Producer: Harry Murdoch

Listen on Apple and Spotify.


This radio episode was produced by the Smart Forests project funded by the European Research Council. Smart Forests is led by Professor Jennifer Gabrys and is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Header image: Border Agency, Bosques de fuego (Fire Forest), installation view, 2023. Image source: Border Agency. Retrieved 11 July 2023, from https://agenciadeborde.com/en/fire-forest/

Smart Forests Atlas materials are free to use for non-commercial purposes (with attribution) under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. To cite this radio episode: Melo, Sebastian, Paula Salas, Rosario Montero, and Jennifer Gabrys, "Border Agency: Fire Forests and Artistic Research in Chile," Smart Forests Atlas (2023), https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/radio/border-agency. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10684254.

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