¡Ay Sudamérica!

CADA was a Chilean collective active from 1979 to 1985 that pioneered conceptual and performance-based interventions in public space during the Pinochet dictatorship. The group employed unconventional materials and ephemeral actions, from distributing milk and bread in poor neighborhoods to staging performances that merged art with direct social engagement. Operating under severe political constraints, CADA rejected gallery-based exhibition in favor of street-level activism that questioned the autonomy of art and its relationship to community need. Their practice anticipated institutional critique and socially engaged art by a decade.