Approximation is set on Shunuko, an island known today as Isla Navarino, located in the southernmost parts of Patagonia, Chile. For four months, Mario Pfeifer observed the Yaghan, a people who first settled in that region thousands of years ago. The remnants of their culture – radically transformed by colonisation and oppression – operate in a vacuum: in museum cabinets and reference works of sociologists or anthropologists.

In an attempt to activate the stagnant past, Pfeifer created a special image sequence: ‘dying’ Yaghan are brought back to life on an iPad, ancestors and family ties are updated, swiped and zoomed. Using techno beats and accurate observations of the local nightlife, the globalised food industry, museum dioramas and the breath-taking scenery, Pfeifer caters to the contemporary aesthetic preferences for bright colours and crisp HD. He proposes a new type of ethnographic model, one in which the Yaghan deal with their cultural heritage, on their own conditions and from the perspective of the ‘here and now’.