Press Kit

What is GAM?

The Gabriela Mistral Center, GAM, is a contemporary cultural center located on an historic building in the heart of Santiago. Its location, between Alameda and Barrio Lastarria, the city’s main artery and a circuit filled with cinema, art, design, gastronomy, bookstores and parks, make it an inescapable cultural landmark for everyone in the city.

The building that houses GAM was an emblematic piece of Salvador Allende’s government, who ordered its construction for the third United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD III.) Later it was used as the headquarters for the junta during the military dictatorship. GAM was first opened on September 2010 with the goal of making culture more accessible to each and every audience. Its mission and name are inspired by the Gabriela Mistral Metropolitan Cultural Center, opened in 1972 and baptized in honor of the Poet and first Chilean Nobel prize laureate.

GAM is an open and diverse meeting point. Today it spans through 22,000 square meters where we can find ten different spaces for theater, dance, circus, classical and popular music, visual arts, popular art and conferences. There are also five squares and a library, BiblioGAM, specialized in scenic and visual arts, working with an open shelves and rooms specially designed for study and reading. It also counts with a recording studio. The building has universal and free access, Monday trough Sunday. Its squares, exhibitions and BiblioGAM can be accessed for free.

While programming contemporary art events and offering its open spaces, GAM also works in the development of audiences with encounters, workshops, talks and special shows to promote the participation of audiences with less access to culture.

Felipe Mella

GAM’s Executive Director

Cultural manager, BA in Architecture and BA in Architectural Project Management.

Felipe Mella counts with a broad experience in management and direction of institution and cultural projects, which has given him a profound knowledge of both the private and public sector. For more than 10 years he has directed teams and developed abilities to design and execute programming strategies and plan for the generation of institutional networks, both on a national and an international level. For eight years he worked as an executive director of Corporación Cultural Balmaceda Doce Quince, a private non-profit organization based in five important Chilean regional capitals (Antofagasta, Valparaíso, Concepción, Puerto Montt and Santiago.) On January 2016 he was elect by the board of directors of the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral, GAM, as its executive director. A position he assumes on March of the same year and that he’s currently performing. Under his management, GAM has transformed itself into a platform for the exchange of arts, culture and management knowledge from and towards other regions of the country.

Photo: Jorge Sánchez

Logos GAM

Contact

If you need more information and/or images in high definition. Just write!

Christian Ellwanger - cellwanger@gam.cl

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