The Santiago Center places special importance to fostering access to culture through film and literature programs. Events in 2018 included the launch of the literary translation workshop Word for Word between graduate students at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and Universidad Diego Portales’ (UDP) School of Creative Writing in Chile; in October arts educator, playwright, performer and director Elizabeth Hess led a workshop at the Women Playwright’s International Conference (WPI) as well as at Universidad Católica's Theater Department; and in December, Wellesley College professor Marjorie Agosin - also a poet, human rights activist, and literary critic— launched her book “The Flowering Tree” during a family workshop held at Biblioteca de Santiago.
In terms of architecture, in August the Center co-sponsored a symposium focusing on the urban and architectural policies implemented in Chile’s capital city between the years 1977 and 1990 by the Pinochet dictatorship, including among others, the addition of thousands of hectares for urban development in the periphery of the city. And in October, Columbia’s Kersten Geers and Enrique Walker lead an Architecture Workshop at Universidad San Sebastián.