Returning to the Land - Cristián Ureta

This is the end of a hundred year history of a mining camp that became a small city of 25,000 people. This is the last part of a story of a death foretold in my country, Chile.It is a visual study of the mining camp of Chuquicamata, taken between 2003 and 2005 – a photographic documentary that delves into memory and identity, as a tribute to those who lived there. The Chuquicamata mining camp closed in 2007 and the end the of the transfer of its inhabitants to Calama, 15 kilometers away. This was done for two reasons: the first environmental—high levels of pollution and its impact on the lives of the miners and their families—and the second economic—because it affected the company's ability to keep growing.