Santiago, Chile and Doha, Qatar: Qatar Museums (QM), the nation’s preeminent institution for art and culture, and Years of Culture, an annual initiative celebrating cross-cultural exchange, announced that Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices opened in Chile for its first presentation in Latin America.
The opening was attended by Francisco Undurraga Gazitúa, Chile’s Minister of Cultures, Arts and Heritage; Ambassador Patricia Araya, Head of DIRAC; H E Batal bin Mujeeb Batal Al Dossary, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Argentine Republic and non-resident Ambassador to the Republic of Chile; Alejandra Valenzuela Oyanedel, Executive Director of Centro Cultural La Moneda; and Drina Rendic Espinosa, Chair of the Board of Fundación Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda.
Hosted by Centro Cultural La Moneda in Santiago, the exhibition builds on the relationships established through the Qatar Argentina and Chile 2025 Year of Culture. The Years of Culture initiative, chaired by Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, spearheads long-lasting cultural partnerships between Qatar and other nations. The presentation of Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices in Chile reflects the initiative’s focus on creating meaningful cultural exchange, building enduring relationships, and using contemporary art and cinema to foster dialogue across borders.
“We chose the title for many reasons. There are many ghosts or djinns in the old ruins of the deserts. They could be seen as a metaphor of your ancestors and your traditions. They could be compassionate sometimes, but if you listen too much to them and lose contact with your fellow humans, you could be led to madness and violence. The ghost has multiple faces. I also like the idea of a phantom limb, meaning that something is both present and not present. In a way, never complete. From a curatorial perspective, a phantom limb is like hidden thematics, something that you can't really go through or express, but shape the project. That’s part of the emotional texture of the exhibition, where you begin with a spiritual, archaeological vision of the desert and you end with desert 2.0, which is a desert seen through the lens of the future,” said Matthieu Orléan, curator of Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices.
Produced by Qatar Museums, Your Ghosts Are Mine is co-organised by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum, in collaboration with Doha Film Institute (DFI), as a legacy of the 2025 Year of Culture partnership with Chile, in collaboration with Chile's Ministry of Cultures, the Arts and Heritage. The exhibition is curated by Matthieu Orléan, artistic collaborator at La Cinémathèque française. Bringing together extracts of films and video installations by more than 40 artists and filmmakers from the Arab world, Africa and Southeast Asia supported by Doha Film Institute, the exhibition arrives in Latin America for the first time after its acclaimed presentation at Palazzo Franchetti, where it was presented alongside the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2024.
"The arrival of Your Ghosts Are Mine offers an opportunity to deepen Centro Cultural La Moneda's commitment to a programme that fosters dialogue between cultures and broadens the perspectives through which we understand the world. We want audiences to engage with narratives, imaginations and experiences that emerge from different contexts while resonating with questions and historical processes that are also part of our own history. We believe that art and culture have the power to build bridges, encourage reflection and enrich public conversation through what we share as societies. We’re proud to continue the institutional partnerships that began during the successful Year of Culture with Qatar and welcome the country’s premier cultural organisations to CCLM," said Alejandra Valenzuela Oyanedel, Executive Director of Centro Cultural La Moneda.
Speaking on behalf of Qatar Museums, Zeina Arida, Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, explained: “At Qatar Museums, we believe that art has the power to create meaningful connections across cultures and offer new ways of understanding our shared humanity. Through Years of Culture, Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices continues that mission by bringing together extraordinary artistic voices from the Arab world, Africa and Southeast Asia. We are honoured to present the exhibition in Chile and hope it inspires dialogue, curiosity and lasting cultural connections between our communities."
Catherine Grenier, Art Mill Museum Director of Concept, said, "Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices is an ambitious attempt to reorganise the moving image's usual categories and to cross the lines of geopolitical borders, the boundaries between fiction and documentary, and the outmoded distinction between feature film and video art. It is part of the future Art Mill Museum's concept to consider that museums have a special role to play in fully integrating cinema at large into the history of art, as this exhibition of films illustrates."
Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, Chief Executive Officer of Doha Film Institute, said, “Cinema has the remarkable ability to transcend borders, connect lived experiences and inspire greater empathy. At Doha Film Institute, we believe that authentic stories are essential to preserving memory, challenging perspectives and fostering meaningful dialogue across cultures. Through Your Ghosts Are Mine, we are honoured to bring powerful voices from the MENA region and Southeast Asia to audiences in Chile, inviting new conversations around identity, displacement, resilience and belonging. As this exhibition continues its international journey, it reaffirms our commitment to championing voices too often overlooked, ensuring they are seen, heard and remembered while enriching our collective understanding of one another and the world we share.”
The Artists, Their Works and Their Dialogue with Latin America
Opening on August 5 in Centro Cultural La Moneda's Sala Pacífico, the exhibition presents an immersive journey through contemporary experiences of community, memory, transnational displacement and exile. Structured around eight thematic environments—Deserts, Ruins, Borders, Exile, Futurism, Cosmos, Fires, Fantasma—the exhibition creates a series of distinct spatial and cinematic experiences.
The works by more than 40 artists and filmmakers explore political upheaval, capitalism, war, grief and loss, among other themes. Placed in dialogue with Latin America, a region likewise shaped by migration, displacement and profound social transformation, the exhibition reveals unexpected connections between seemingly distant realities. Together, these works invite visitors to consider the shared questions, emotions and human experiences that transcend geographical, political and cultural boundaries.
In parallel with the exhibition, the National Cinematheque of Chile will present a film programme from September 4 to 6, featuring feature-length and short films by some of the artists and filmmakers participating in the exhibition.
