Simón Sepúlveda

La esperanza es un Bar (Hope is a Bar) is a project that uses painting and installation to explore two sites currently going to rack and ruin in the San Isidro neighbourhood. One is the Ermita del Santo shopping centre, on which demolition work began in January.

The other is Bar La Esperanza, a canteen situated opposite a vacant lot and a rubbish dump, a space of resistance for residents opposing gentrification. The project connects both places through a fable inspired by the discovery of a piece of jewellery in 1963 near the town of Madrid, New Mexico, during a trip to the USA. In this tale, the jewel—in the form of a bird with a human body—wanders through various galaxies until, in an attempt to return home, it mistakenly lands in Madrid, Spain, specifically upon the moon that crowns the tower of the former Ermita del Santo shopping centre.

Biography

The practice of Simón Sepúlveda (Santiago de Chile, 1989) centres on the search for ways to rearticulate desire from a critical perspective that subverts structures of power. How can I desire what I have rather than what I lack? This paradoxical question serves as his starting point for an attempt to understand a present he perceives as increasingly confusing, and for articulating different possible futures. Through his work he constructs his own visual universe, unstable and shifting, permeated by a melancholic atmosphere from which moments of humour emerge. His identity and experiences, such as his migrant status, his lack of professional artistic training, and even the fact that he is the father of twins, all converge within his work.

Simón Sepúlveda is a recipient of the 2026 Six-month residencies for visual artists.