Marca de Agua by Stella Meyer and Sarah Schneider

Stella Meyer and Sarah Schneider ask a simple yet urgent question: Who owns the water? In their book Marca de Agua, they visualize what water privatization looks like in the Aysén region of Patagonia, Chile.

Puerto Guadal lies on the shores of Lake Chelenko. Water is everywhere: in the landscape, in the weather, in local work, and in everyday life. The lake is part of one of Patagonia’s largest freshwater systems, fed by glaciers, rivers, and rain from the Northern and Southern Ice Fields. For generations, people have lived by water. It shapes place names, trails, and the ways the territory is inhabited. Here, water is not distant: it is what sustains life in community. At the same time, water in Chile has been privatized since the 1980s. Water rights are allocated, traded, and sold, including in the water-richest region, the Aysén Region. These processes are often invisible in daily life, until they touch the land itself. This visual investigation emerges from the territory, exploring the paradox of water as a vital source of life, yet a commodified resource.