Re-Constitución
In the attempt to transform Santiago into a European city at the turn of the 20 th C, the canalisation of the Mapocho River solved the flooding problems but caused great social disruption. Until the late 19 th C it held a place in the public imaginary as one of Santiago’s four icons and was represented in landscape painting as such (Felsenhardt, 2017). However, the episodic torrent that was previously part of daily life was transformed and managed into a marginal place and a public space associated with rubbish and disease. The canalised causeway became the site of homelessness, drug addiction and suicide. During the military dictatorship of General Pinochet (1973-1989) this public space was both the site of creative protest (see the work of UNAC Cultural Union below) and, in the words of writer Roberto Ampuero, a site where “the dead that floated in the Mapocho with the marks of torture and a bullet in back of the neck” reminded all of the regime’s brutal response to oppos