In 1990, Chile regained its democracy and began to undergo a significant economic transformation. This dramatic transition bore different impacts on the various people and places of the South American country. Valle is an ongoing photographic body of work with a focus on the communities that were left behind following this shift.

Photographer Cristian Ordóñez and Eduardo Ordonez-Ponce, an associate professor in business at Alberta’s Athabasca University, began the project after a visit to Chile in 2022. The two visited the Huasco Valley, accompanied by a group of researchers who interviewed locals and conducted surveys. The valley is surprisingly fertile, particularly as it’s nestled by the Atacama Desert—the driest non-polar desert in the world. Sometimes referred to as the Garden of Atacama, the valley region has also been wracked by a variety of environmental, economic and health concerns for more than thirty years.

These selected photographs ...