Exhibition organised by Colecciones Fundación MAPFRE in collaboration with MK Gallery
Santiago/Evelyn, La Palmera, Santiago from the series Manzana de Adán color [Adam’s Apple colour], 1983, Digital ink print on paper;Talca from the series Manzana de Adán color [Adam’s Apple colour], 1984, Digital ink print on paper. All works © Paz Errázuriz. Colecciones Fundación MAPFRE.
MK Gallery will present the first major UK exhibition dedicated to the work of pioneering Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz (b. Santiago, 1944).
Paz Errázuriz is one of Latin America’s most important documentary photographers. Over the course of five decades, she has built a vast and uncompromising body of work that retains the capacity to challenge social norms and political orthodoxies. Yet, despite her status as a progressive female artist who has received international recognition, her work has yet to have a solo institutional exhibition in the UK.
This landmark exhibition at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, presents 171 photographs and will provide visitors with a unique insight into Chilean society through a historical era of immense change.
After studying at the Cambridge Institute of Education in the UK, Errázuriz taught herself to use a camera before emerging as a pivotal artist during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990). In violation of her country’s military regime, and often in direct defiance of strict censorship laws, Errázuriz travelled widely to fearlessly document the lives of those overlooked including women, indigenous groups and groups pushed to the margins of society, including sex workers, trans communities, psychiatric patients and political dissidents. Viewed today, her images shed light on Chilean people, communities and movements that might otherwise be lost to time.
The exhibition will feature some of her most iconic series, including La Manzana de Adán (Adam’s Apple), which portrays the lives of Chilean LGBTQIA+ people, sex workers in the 1980s, and Antesala de un Desnudo (Antechamber of a Nude), a haunting series that captures the conditions of psychiatric patients in long-term care.
The exhibition is long overdue. While Paz Errázuriz has been exhibited extensively across Latin America and Europe, she has never been the subject of a comprehensive UK solo presentation. Among her numerous accolades, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, the Ansel Adams Award by the Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de Cultura in 1995, and Chile’s Altazor Prize, and a lifetime achievement award from the Chilean Circle of Critics, in 2005. She represented Chile at the Venice Biennale in 2015.
Alongside the display, a public programme of talks and workshops will provide further insight into her enduring legacy as a progressive and deeply humanist female photographer.
![2. Paz Errázuriz, Talca from the series Manzana de Adán color [Adam's Apple colour], 1985, Digital ink print on paper. © Paz Errázuriz. Colecciones Fundación MAPFRE.tif](https://uc9b036a5447410d327172fcf738.previews.dropboxusercontent.com/p/thumb/ACknxr0JcR3eSvzRR4NHCMPjhnTd81TCbvPS2hH3Lf8aCTgoF-CroeNrXXgyk7vgPSnkRLR6GsGVL_H6pjP_O3ePZcJOS0pwu4etWw7Xd0v5XHpK9LNoVDBvMYUkkTT5cl8ImvS9PnImOSHUkp_rRF8c20Hzyfm9_QhhNfLA2vW9JEGnJCauxHuQUlau9AcQfdRYXsiJGS-MR9YGk8mps6cxCBcx6TKexyyUEDJgDjQmKrwzD8bGOIoWTqX6dhboqucknkPyicy9qZM80oW7Y4KTcxyA-PX05WELBIZz6atokDrwsTZ3WKn-OG4QHOfxSB7ab6I7y3XqgQmjwKWRBUqJ/p)
Paz Errázuriz is the latest in a series of significant retrospectives of influential photographers to be staged at MK Gallery. In 2022, the exhibition Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning was the first major survey of the British photographer’s 40-year career, featuring hand-tinted landscape photographs and new works exploring themes of race, identity and our relationship with the natural world. In the same year, Vivian Maier: Anthology displayed over 140 of the secretive former nanny’s street photographs, providing a new insight into mid-20th-century American life. In 2024, Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World showcased 171 photographs and over 40 paintings by Leiter, highlighting his pioneering role in expressionist colour photography and evoking 1960s New York.
Anthony Spira, Director of MK Gallery, said:
‘We are thrilled to be working with Paz Errázuriz on this survey of her extraordinary career. With its focus on communities whose voices are rarely heard, the artists’ work engages with pressing social circumstances that have never been more resonant than today. The exhibition will build on the huge successes of recent photography exhibitions at MK Gallery of Vivian Maier, Ingrid Pollard and Saul Leiter.’
Paz Errázuriz: Dare to Look
19 July – 5 October 2025
MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes MK9 3QA
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm. Closed Mondays
