© María Verónica, artist book “In Their Memory”

 The name Maria is of Latin origin. It carries its meaning in many languages, including “beloved”, “rebellious” and “of the sea”. I cannot think of a more fitting name to capture the essence of the passion, fortitude, and profundity of her work.

 I came to see María Verónica San Martín’s work for the first time in CODEX 2022 at the Craneway Pavilion, Berkeley. I was volunteering at the CODEX that day. Her artist book ‘In Their Memory’ was laid on the table. It was beautiful, profound, as well as deeply painful. I felt an intoxicating pull toward her work and kept coming back to her table. In the age of global political violence and oppressions her work deeply resonated with my feelings. It was a bold articulation of humanity’s moral standing against oppression.

She became my inspirations since then. I had the opportunity to experience her work in CODEX 2024 as well. Artists like her makes me reevaluate my goals in life. I feel much honored having to do a piece on Lenscratch.com on María’s work.

© María Verónica, artist book “In Their Memory”

Tell us about your growing up. From the background of graphic design, how did you choose to become a printmaker and bookmaker?

After two years of studying architecture in Santiago, Chile, I realized that my true passion lay in graphic design. Upon graduation, I felt a strong desire to explore art more deeply, especially combining design with hands-on techniques and critical thinking. That’s when I received a government scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in art and the Book at the Corcoran School of Art and Design at The George Washington University in Washington DC. My journey as an artist goes from-the-computer-to-the-hand. During my MA I learned a variety of printmaking techniques and could deeply understand the layering system and the importance of the processes stages, that is, how to think and create a print. From the very beginning, I was committed to make a body of work that reflects my identity in connection to the human rights violations during the dictatorship and, more importantly, to the question of how the trace of the regime affects the present. I often found myself in classes at the museum of the Corcoran just across from the White House. The proximity to such an iconic symbol of power—especially given its role in the 1973 military coup in Chile—led me to confront the impact of U.S. imperialism on my country. This backdrop deeply influenced my work, especially when I began projects focused on memory and resistance.

I remember one experience while etching a portrait of one of the disappeared onto a litho stone. As I printed it, the image vanished from the stone, only to reappear on the paper. That moment felt symbolic—like an act of truth and reconciliation, a reminder that memory and life persist even in the face of trauma. I saw bookmaking to create three-dimensional spaces—like memorials, protest banners, and spaces for reflection—rather than just a traditional book that’s read from left to right in a linear way. I envisioned books that move beyond the shelf, opening new narratives through mixed media, like installation, sculpture, and performance.

© María Verónica, artist book “In Their Memory”

© María Verónica artist book “In Their Memory”

What made you choose ‘artist book’ to express protest and document the resistance and political violence in Chile along with the printmaking?

I choose to use the “artist book” form to express protest and document the resistance and political violence in Chile because it allows me to engage with the complex political history of my home country in a deeply personal and impactful way. Through printmaking, installation, and performance, with handmade books at the core of my practice, I aim to highlight art’s civic, historical, and political responsibility to reconstruct past stories in order to foster social change. The book, as both a vessel of memory and knowledge, challenges systems of power while offering a means to learn and heal from past trauma. My work draws from ongoing research into Chile, the US, and Nazism, culminating in projects that critically address global systems of power.

For me, the message is the priority. The medium and form should serve that message, and the aesthetic choices should best express it. My inspiration comes from the construction of memory and monumental memorials, but I filter that through the intimate act of reading a book, which adds a personal, reflective layer to the narrative.

© María Verónica, artist book “Memory & Landscape”

© María Verónica, artist book “Memory & Landscape”

You have been working on the ‘Moving Memorials’ as an open narrative for more than 13 years. When you started the series, how did you comprehend the transformation and evolution through time? At what point did you plan to incorporate the choreographed performance?

I began the Moving Memorials series in 2011 while studying for my Master’s in Washington, D.C., not realizing it would evolve into a 13-title series of 204 handmade artist books by the time I graduated in 2013. Each of these books is interconnected in a non-linear way, with one investigation naturally leading to another, unveiling different aspects of unresolved memories and human rights violations.

Over the years, as I worked with various reports on truth and reconciliation, torture centers, and memorials, my use of paper began to shift. When researching a Nazi enclave that operated in Chile, the work took on a new form—metal. I sought a material that conveyed both strength and resonance, evoking the severity of World War II. Using isometric drawings and 3D mockups, I deconstructed symbols of power, layering them to challenge their meaning.

A crucial moment in the project came when I gained access to an audio recording of secret transcontinental operations involving German, Peruvian, and Chilean agents. The conversation, encrypted and discussing covert arms transfers and clandestine operations, eventually led to collaboration with the dictatorship and the CIA. Together with a musician, I transformed this audio into immersive soundscapes that, alongside the sculptures, created an activated experience. The sculptures—large metal books weighing 130 pounds each—became kinetic objects, part of a performance symbolizing resistance to the ongoing legacy of the regime, especially in Chile, where the daughters of its leaders continue to hold power.

As the project grew, I realized that performance was necessary to convey the urgency of the work. The audience became an active participant, engaging with the sculptures and sound in real time. The act of reading, once a private ritual, became a public conversation—a physical protest and an act of remembrance. By integrating choreography into the performance, I highlighted the relationship between the body, the work, and the landscape, turning reading into an embodied act of resistance.

I also envisioned my books not just as objects to be read, but as movable memorials that could be activated anywhere in the world. These large-format books evoke memorial sites, spaces of reflection, and architectures of memory, using testimonies of horror and hope to connect historical archives with living archives—the stories of those who endured injustices and those who carry the legacy forward.

After the Dignidad project and the onset of the COVID pandemic, I felt the need for collaboration. This led to The Javelin Project, where I worked with dancers and choreographers, moving away from solitary studio work to a more collective and performative practice. Through this evolution, my work has expanded beyond books, combining sculpture, sound, performance, and choreography to engage the public in a deeper, more urgent conversation about history, resistance, and memory.

© María Verónica, artist book installation “Memory and Landscape”

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

Your work is addressing human rights violations in Chile. When I look into it, it stirs deep emotions that are not confined to any boundary. When I first saw your work ‘In their memory’ in the CODEX, my heart stopped, and I could relate to it as global oppression. Working on a project like this can be deeply personal and emotional. I would like to know your emotions when you were working on a project like this.

Absolutely. My books are rooted in the history of the Southern Cone dictatorships, but they also address the global, recurring cycle of oppression that continues to unfold worldwide. When I created In Their Memory, I felt an overwhelming sense of pain, especially as I reflected on political refugees, migrants, persecution, and fear. Every time I have to continue the edition of one of my books —whether I’m pulling the films from the corresponding flat files, shooting images on the screen, or inking a zinc plate—there’s no time it doesn’t destroy me, but I find the courage to keep going. It’s vital for me to preserve these memories and to print messages of resistance, no matter where these books end up.

Sometimes they ended up in museums, public libraries, special collections, university libraries, schools, or book fairs like CODEX or the EAB Fair. Each time one is shared—whether by a librarian, scholar, or student—it keeps the message alive and continues to reach people. And for me this is when the word is done.  

When did you realize the transformation of the metaphoric voice to a book sculpture? How about ‘Indignity & Resistance’ and ‘Memory & Landscape’?

I realized the transformation of the metaphoric voice into a book sculpture when the book needed to speak more loudly as a sonic voice than simply convey text and images—it had to move, engage with the audience, and take on a political presence, like a “political monster,” to capture attention.

In Indignity & Resistance, the book becomes the Peace Park Memorial (formerly Villa Grimaldi), a torture center in the Andes foothills. It contrasts the horrors inside with the indifference of life outside. The book is shaped like a circle with walls: inside, images based on torture testimonies are painted with oil-based inks; outside, abstract lines of the Andes are transferred using water-based techniques. The oil and water contrast symbolizes the divide of the time, while the book is designed to be inhabited by the body, both physically and symbolically.

 Memory & Landscape is an open book of Chile’s Truth and Reconciliation report, unfolding as a double accordion structure. One side features portraiture made with charcoal powder and silkscreen, while the other shows historical photos of repression in the 70s and 80s, presented through seven woodcuts.

The Dignidad project, created during my Whitney ISP residency (2017-2018), deconstructs symbols of power and reimagines the machinery of a Nazi enclave in southern Chile, run by the daughter of former agents. This multimedia project, combining music, archives, kinetic sculptures, and performance, has been shown in over 20 venues across three continents and will be presented in Madrid this March.

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

Who are your inspirations in ‘artist book’ or print making lately? 

I’m inspired by artists and collectives like Booklyn and Interference Archives, as well as activists and groups addressing current social and political injustices. My students at Mixteca, Parsons, and the Center for Book Arts also inspire me. I’m drawn to memory-related works by artists such as Goya, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Helio Oiticica and Yvonne Rainer’s performances, and Patricio Guzmán’s films. I conceptualize my projects through the writings of Diane Taylor, Andreas Huyssen, and Hannah Arendt, along with historical archives.

© María Verónica, artist book “Dignidad”

© María Verónica, “Moving Memorial” performance

© María Verónica, artist book “The Javelin Project”

© María Verónica, artist book “The Javelin Project”

© María Verónica, artist book “Madres Buscadoras”

© María Verónica, artist book “Madres Buscadoras”

© María Verónica, artist book “Madres Buscadoras”

Artist books by María Verónica San Martín

In Their Memory. Human Rights Violations in Chile. 1973-1990 (2012)

In Their Memory is a book of resistance that carries forward the protest begun by the families of the disappeared in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973-1990). More than forty thousand political prisoners were victims of torture, execution and exile, and 3,5501 people disappeared. Nameless crosses are all that they have received by way of a burial. It is to honor the missing and their families that this object-book seeks to disseminate and communicate human rights’ violations in Chile. By documenting the identities of the victims, In Their Memory also invites reflection and puts forth a message of hope founded in truth.

Memory and Landscape: Unveiling the Historical Truths of Chile”

Memory and Landscape: Unveiling the Historical Truths of Chile is a book that addresses the disappearance and murder of individuals during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. It uses etching techniques and the act of printmaking to create an alternative visual medium that highlights the human rights violations committed between 1973 and 1990. The book includes a timeline of these violations, fourteen biographies of the disappeared, and a full list of victims from the Rettig Report. As an artistic tribute to Chile’s collective memory, it symbolizes the ongoing struggle for justice and dignity for the victims and their families.

Dignidad (2018-ongoing)

Dignidad is a multimedia visual and sonic installation and performance that explores the history of Colonia Dignidad, the infamous enclave in Southern Chile founded in 1961 by former Nazi officers who escaped Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Known for its long history of child abuse, during the C.I.A.-backed military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), Colonia Dignidad was turned into a detention camp, where hundreds of dissidents were tortured and murdered, including Soviet-born, Jewish-American math professor Boris Weisfeiler. Many other victims were buried in mass graves or incinerated to eliminate evidence, and the bodies of many are still missing. The legacies of this massacre alongside traumas of children born and raised in the enclave are still felt today, revealing the damages of fascism in the present.

Also, this description: Dignidad is a political abstraction, which refers to the history of Colonia Dignidad, a nazi enclave that operated in southern Chile during the dictatorship, through the construction and deconstruction of symbols of power. The spaces of segregation and repression can be imagined spatially and conceptually through the architecture of the bunkers of the Colonia Dignidad period. The physical transformation of the sculpture manifests as the history’s relevance and resonance of the ideologies evoked by symbols and spaces. Dignidad is composed of a small size metal movable book, four large size metal books, a lithograph artist book, and a performance.

The Javelin Project (2021)

This Artist book is based on the Javelin Project performance and documents its research

through abstract etchings on textile and video stills. The Javelin Project is a ritual-performance of 30 minutes with original music that explores the concept of migration, resistance, and freedom through the history of the ancestral spear to the professional javelin. Inspired by sports, and more specifically on the javelin throw, the project seeks to reflect on issues of power and patriarchy through a choreography based on simple movements from the early aboriginal cultures to the capitalism system we inhabited.

Madres Buscadoras (2023)

This commissioned artist book for the National Museum of Women in the Arts is inspired on the theme of geology of memory. The work brings together the enormous and vast bidimensional space of the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile and the chant of the mothers of the disappeared entitled Cueca Sola into a memorial book. The ongoing search of the mothers of the disappeared during the civic-military dictatorship still breathes underneath the earth as a live memory. The book is contained inside of a clamshell box with sandbags from the desert, handkerchiefs and a clay shovel.

María Verónica San Martín (Santiago, Chile, 1981) is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist and printmaker. She is a part-time faculty member in the Departments of Art, Media, and Technology and Communication Design at Parsons, The New School in New York, as well as an instructor at the Center for Book Arts and Mixteca, a refugee center in Brooklyn. A Whitney Museum ISP Fellow in 2018 and a scholar and educator at the Center for Book Arts in 2017, San Martín’s work explores the cultural impacts of history, memory, and trauma through archives, artist books, installations, sculptures, and performances.

San Martín’s work is held in the collections of prominent museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pompidou Center, the Walker Art Center, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Whitney Museum, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, the Chilean Museum of Memory and Human Rights, and the Contemporary Art Center of Chile, among over 80 other institutions.

She has had solo exhibitions at venues such as The Print Center, Philadelphia (2023); Goethe Institute, Montreal (2023); Fordham University, New York (2023); Trinity College, Connecticut (2023); NAC Gallery, Santiago, Chile (2021); Museum Meermanno, The Hague, Netherlands (2019); Animal Gallery, Santiago, Chile (2019); Center for Book Arts, New York (2019); National Archive of Chile, Santiago, Chile (2018); BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, New York (2017); Cultural Center of Antofagasta, Chile (2016); and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile (2013). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions, including the Triennial of Poli/Gráfica de Puerto Rico: Latin America and the Caribbean (2024); Lincoln Center, New York (2022); Public Art at Rockefeller Center in collaboration with the Climate Museum, New York (2022); the LA Art Fair with the Museum of the Americas (AMA), California (2021); the Immigrant Artist Biennial, New York (2020); the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2023); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art through a recent series of open workshops in the galleries (2024).

San Martín has received two New York Foundation for the Arts grants, a Sustainable Arts Grant, four Fondarts Chilean Government grants, and a Conicyt Becas Chile Scholarship. Since 2016, she has been performing and presenting her projects Moving Memorials, Dignidad, and The Javelin Project in museums, public spaces, universities, schools, and cultural centers. She is also an artist and board member of Booklyn Art and is currently preparing solo exhibitions in Madrid and Toronto for 2025.

Follow María Verónica San Martín:

Website mveronicasanmartin.com

Instagram @san.martin.maria / fb: Maria Veronica San Martin

How to purchase (if still available) All books are available.

Contact at info@mveronicasanmartin.com or through website (mveronicasanmartin.com)