Abstract

This article explores the urban fabric of three cities in Chile based on the history of the cultural festivals held there in recent decades. Taking as a background a series of cultural milestones that marked public space in Santiago, Valparaiso, and Concepcion in the transition to the twenty-first century, I investigate the broader city projects that have resulted in the Santiago a Mil International Festival, the Thousand Drums Carnival, and the Rock en Conce (REC) Festival. Focusing on the urban tensions and conflicts that emerge in this type of event, I analyse the public discourses that arise around these festivals, the uses of the city that they promote, and their ways of mobilising a particular mode of understanding and exercising cultural policy in their territories.