"Aún no conozco este nuevo corazón”

"Aún no conozco este nuevo corazón” explores, through my mother’s experience, the impact of the neoliberal model on healthcare in Chile: illness, debt, and waiting take their toll on her body. Inequality forces her to migrate to Spain, where a HeartMate 3

"Aún no conozco este nuevo corazón” is a photographic series that examines the impact of neoliberal policies on the healthcare system through my mother’s illness and her prolonged wait for a heart transplant. The project explores how inequalities in access to healthcare affect bodies, family relationships, and the possibilities of sustaining life.

In Chile, the market-driven logic that governs the healthcare system can turn illness into long waiting periods, debt, and barriers to accessing treatment. Faced with the deterioration of her health and the financial impossibility of accessing an alternative treatment, my mother migrated to Spain. There, the public healthcare system enabled her treatment to continue and gave her access to a HeartMate 3, a ventricular assist device that supports her heart’s function.

Through photography, family archives, and medical and financial documents, the series constructs a narrative that connects the intimate experience of illness with the political and economic structures that determine access to healthcare.

The project invites viewers to consider how institutional decisions affect everyday life, produce inequalities, and shape bodies, emotional bonds, and family relationships.

The series reflects on health as a fundamental right and on the concrete consequences of different healthcare models, showing how access to medical care can determine the possibilities of staying alive.