Pablo Hassmann

Visual storyteller
   
𝐈𝐈. The brief glimpse of a settler's dream
Location: Germany & Latin America
Nationality: Chilean, French.
Biography: “So close, yet so far… this is how I’ve learned about the world around me, when the distance between us, thus our difference, is photographed”. Pablo Hassmann (b. 1988, Latin America) is a Berlin-based photographer. Before... MORE
Private Story
𝐈𝐈. The brief glimpse of a settler's dream
Copyright Pablo Hassmann 2024
Date of Work Jan 2023 - Jan 2023
Updated Jan 2023
Location Chile
Summary
12.01.23. It's my grandpa's (Carlos) 91st birthday. That day, he wanted to visit Villa Baviera, a German settler community in central Chile where past and future collides. Formerly known as Colonia Dignidad, Villa Baviera was an isolated settlement of germans that arrived in 1961 under the strict control of the religious leader Paul Schäfer. Until 1996, settlers and dissidents (especially during Pinochet's era) were victims of human rights violations, while to the outside world, the propaganda portrayed the settlement as an example of German efficiency.
For Carlos, this place represents part of the German culture he loves. After decades, the settlement is one of the few places where a majority of the community speaks German as a first language. Besides the infamous past of Colonia Dignidad, the new generations of settlers are working to rebrand the settlement's identity by enforcing new economic activities such as tourism. As of today, the main house is a three stories hotel placed next to a new restaurant filled with the settlement's agricultural products. Next to their most traditional economy (whose quality is associated with the so-called German efficiency), tourism is a way to rebrand and advertise the new face of this community.

For this one-day project, I wanted to play with creating a piece of propaganda from Villa Baviera through my grandfather's enthusiasm for German culture. The nostalgia for the "pure German" culture collides with its present, the Dantesque effort to rewrite their history, and the future of the new generations to come. Today, around ten percent of the original migrants still live in the settlement after more than a decade of reorganization. Only teenagers, the newest generation, speak Spanish as a first language.
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𝐈𝐈. The brief glimpse of a settler's dream by Pablo Hassmann
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