CATALINA JEANNERET CALDERÓN

Hi there,

I am a Chilean photographer and filmmaker currently based in California while I finalize my studies in Documentary Film.
An archive enthusiast and a hopeless romantic, I explore documentary and creative projects that intertwine memory, affections and emotions.

Here I share my work—a glimpse into my bilingüal heart

Hola!

Soy una fotógrafa y documentalista chilena radicada en California mientras concluyo mis estudios en cine documental. Apasionada por los archivos y romántica empedernida por naturaleza, mi trabajo documental y creativo entrelaza la complejidad de la memoria, los afectos y las emociones en narrativas visuales.

Aquí te muestro un pedacito de mi corazón <3

PHOTOGRAPHY / FOTOGRAFÍA

Visual Diaries (2024-present)

Works - Encargos Recientes

Visual notes for an archive of love letters

Varios, trabajos pasados (2019-2022)

DOCUMENTARY FILMS / DOCUMENTALES

La ciudad sin ti (2025)
Documentary film in production. Mixing archival footage of Santiago, love letters and reflections of this city, this film invites us to look at this place from an intimate lens.

Versátil (2022)
a shortfilm about creativity, performance and the risks of being a sex worker in Santiago, Chile.

ESSAYS / ENSAYOS

Versátil - notes on sex work (2022)

ethnographic essay on six months of interviews with Vesania, artist, performer and sex worker in Santiago, Chile.

Certificado de presencia (2023)

Short essay for Claudio Pérez photobook, Last Footprint (available by request)

Notes for an Archive of Love Letters (2024)

The Archive of Love Letters is an ongoing project. You can still contribute to this intiative or write me to get more information.

Visual diaries (ongoing) - notas análogas

“La ciudad sin ti” (2025)

“Santiago, since its foundation, was imagined and conflicted with the possibilities of urban life: the illusion of modernity and the intense migratory processes, particularly after the first quarter of the century, from mining and agrarian regions to the capital, but also from Europe and the Middle East with World War II drove a drastic acceleration in transformations to modernity. Middle and upper classes concentrated towards the center and east of the city; north of Mapocho River, northwest, and south became middle and lower class areas. With the growth of a national-focused economy, factories were disbursed in the southern neighborhoods of the city. Downtown streets stopped being residential and progressively became the administrative, commercial, and cultural heart of the city. These increases in demographics and structural transformations in the city shaped social movements and political programs alike, in which different social groups in Santiago demanded labor, education, public health, secured housing, and women’s rights [...]

[...] With these historical considerations in mind, what could happen if we explore these events from the impact that they had on both individual and collective subjectivity? Can emotions, affections, and memories provide other reflections of Santiago’s history that the methods of history avoid?”

This 20-minute documentary thesis film has an experimental, essayistic approach in which the letters encountered provide the narrative structure. I wanted to explore how public spaces can suit for private conversations through interviews in busy streets and plazas. In them, participants addressed the possibilities of writing love letters, whether the people in Santiago write them or not, in which ways and to whom, and what are perceptions towards this intimate but social practice.

Notes for an archive of Love Letters (fragment)

Love letters are strange documents. They seem so obvious to recognize; but they elude us when attempting to define them. Writings of these kind are a result of dedication of time and emotional
labor, but not necessarily have a tactical function[1] other than the ultimate desired human connection: these letters feel and are urgent documents. Usually, they come from somewhere inside unidentifiable for the writer[2] what makes them almost visceral, and the writer manifests certain awareness of this condition.[3]

[1] Doll Castillo, Darcie, Las cartas de amor de Gabriela Mistral, o el discurso amoroso de una sujeto en fuga, CEME, Archivo Chile (URL https://www.archivochile.com/Cultura_Arte_Educacion/gm/s/gmsobre0021.pdf )

[2] Chilean poet Claudio Bertoni said ‘escribirlo todo, como venga/To write everything, as it comes.

[3] But also archives can have a visceral condition: “Viscerality in the archives ultimately invites us to examine the spaces between affective and bureaucratic impulses – between embodiment and documentation.” Op. Cit, Tortorici, p.45

We see the testing marks of the pen, a fingerprint, and if look closer, in an almost voyeuristic way, what we can see through the receipt and notice the marks of the pen. Because it is contextualized by the nature of the receipt, it even might be possible to imagine or speculate the scene in which the person wrote this letter. And, even if we can’t read the letter itself, we are still able to identify the sense of urgency that made someone dedicate specific words to express affection. The love letter in a receipt also brings to attention how archives work and how filters of History work.
[...]The archive suggests, according to Ericka Balsom “an abundance without gaps, unaffected by the ravages of time or the policies of right holders, unmarked by hierarchies and exclusions that doggedly persist. The archive is an overwhelming presence, it has no beginning and no end, no relationship to authority - When in fact, archives are the domain of absence as much as presence.”[1]

Thus, it becomes necessary for this project to act against the illusion of totality that archives, and to question where and how are love letters, by archival practices.

[1] Balsom, Ericka, “From Singular to Plural” in Schulte Strathaus, Stefanie and Hediger Vinzenz [eds.] Accidental Archivism, meson press, 2023. p.192

Ethnographic work (2019-2022)

They say my country has a bad memory. It’s said to mobilize us, to wake us up, to keep us from being deceived by fleeting illusions. I don’t think that is true. I think I encounter memory and connections with the past in our present all the time. However, we rarely disclose it. Our memories are obscured by . My country is surrounded by ocean, desert and mountains. To be open has never been a common trait. My projects begin from the inside of our hearts.

From the vibrant colors of La Tirana and the erotic heat of Santiago’s nightlife to the thunderous Bío Bío, my work as a research assistant led me to conduct ethnographies across different regions of Chile.

Dicen que mi país tiene mala memoria. Lo repiten para no dejarnos engañar por ilusiones efímeras. Pero yo no creo en la mala memoria— me encuentro con ella a diario, con esos ecos del pasado vaya a donde vaya. Sin embargo, rara vez lo revelamos socialmente. Nuestros recuerdos están oscurecidos, cristalizados, pareciera que la historia no le perteneciera a su país.
Mi país está rodeado de océano, de desierto y de montañas. Ser abiertos nunca ha sido una característica común de nosotros, sus habitantes. Mis proyectos comienzan desde lo más profundo de nuestros corazones.

Desde los colores vibrantes de La Tirana y el calor erótico de la noche santiaguina hasta el estruendoso Bío Bío, mi trabajo como asistente en distintos proyectos de investigación me llevó a realizar etnografías en diversas regiones de Chile.

If you’d like to learn more about my work and my documentary and creative practices, or if you’d like to receive my CV and check out projects not published here, feel free to email me at cata.jeanner@gmail.com.

Si deseas conocer un poco más de mi trabajo y mis prácticas documentales y creativas, o recibir mi CV y ver trabajos que no están publicados acá, envíame un correo a

Hi there! if you see this, let’s be friends on instagram 💌 @cata.jeanneret