Macarena Aguilar is an industrial designer and founder of DAW, a company specialized in creative design that ranges from branding to interior design for brands and commercial spaces. Among his outstanding projects is his collaboration with restaurants such as La Dicha, where he has participated in the comprehensive conceptualization: from the development of the name and the design of furniture, to the choice of plates and the creation of alliances to incorporate first-class contemporary art into spaces. It has also been key in the creation of brand identity and the design of stores and shopping corners for Okwu, an emerging Chilean makeup brand.
In addition to leading the commercial area of DAW, Macarena is a founding member of the community Antenna and currently plays the role of Director of the Foundation.
To close 2024, we spoke with Macarena about his vision of art, design and life.
What led you to get involved in the art world?
I have always been a collector of things. I never buy a single item; I'm more interested in what happens when the items are accompanied. If I buy one candle holder, I buy two. If I like one plant, I buy two, and so on. During my travels, I acquired objects and, as I organized and related them, a kind of collection began to form. Collecting, I think, has always been in my DNA.
Later, I met Alfonso Díaz while working as an advisor to the Design Council at DIRAC, during the first administration of Sebastián Piñera. During this period, several institutional wills came together to support emerging talents in design, with the objective of internationalizing them and positioning them in key scenarios. We managed to bring designers to events such as the Furniture Fair in Milan and Design Week in London.
With the change of government, these efforts were disbanded, but I had already learned a lot about internationalization, something that also applies to art. Alfonso and I maintained our friendship, and it was he who sold me my first work: a piece by Cecilia Avenaño, which is now at the entrance of my apartment. From that moment on, I was passionate about art and I haven't stopped collecting it.
How did you know Antenna?
In addition to my friendship with Alfonso, I knew Cota Güell from school, and with Elisa Ibáñez we had a common friend, the artist and designer Sebastián Errázuriz. When they started this project, they invited me to participate. I was even offered to be part of the first board of directors, but at that time I was expecting my first daughter, in addition to having to keep my office and other projects going. Although I was unable to join the board in that first instance, I was a member from the beginning and supported them in every way I could.
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And how did this change your relationship with art?
Art is like a vice: the more you get involved, the more you learn and understand. The other day, someone said to me: “Oh! Did you go to the fair in Miami? What did you buy?” I answered, “Nothing,” and he asked, “Then what are you going for?” I explained to him that you don't go to fairs just to shop. You go to observe, learn, connect ideas, and discover the work of artists. Not everything revolves around the transactional; navigating art goes far beyond acquiring pieces.
Such a project is a unique opportunity. What mobilizes me most professionally is the possibility of building bridges: bringing together experts in different areas, highlighting the names of all those involved, and choosing the best people. This approach results in something much more powerful. In addition, I firmly believe in “evangelizing” about the power of art: demonstrating that working with art does not depend on having a high budget, but on understanding that acquiring art is possible at all levels.
Has working with artists been challenging?
In my case, it hasn't been complicated for two reasons:
In Antenna sessions, you are almost always accompanied by your daughter, Pola, and we have seen how she has grown up surrounded by art. What was it like to raise her in this world?
Pola has a very particular personality: she is a quiet girl who is easy to carry. If it were an earthquake, I probably wouldn't be able to live with me the way we do. At seven months she made her first trip to New York, where I took her to the Whitney and to tour galleries. For me, motherhood has always been about integrating my daughter into my life, not building a life exclusively for her. I'm not the type of mother who spends all day at Disneyland or Mampato; our life together has been different.
I remember an Antenna Session with Iván Navarro that was a dream come true as a mother: Pola was sitting on the floor, listening attentively to the conversation, while drawing the works in her notebook. Those little moments are a kind of maternal fantasy that I've been lucky enough to see fulfilled.
Today, at the age of nine, Pola has already attended four Venice Biennials. When we go to fairs or exhibitions, she explores in her own way: she navigates spaces, takes photos with her camera, shows me the works she likes and asks me to take pictures of her with them. I don't know where all this will take her, but what I see is that she is absorbing everything, making connections and establishing relationships. Pola has been making ceramics since she was four years old, she does embroidery, she tries all kinds of food, she is super curious and adapts to everything. Experience things.
Nowadays they invite us to so many frivolities: the cream, the shoe, the universe of influencers. It's not a criticism because I understand that's the way the market is, but it's very boring. In contrast, when you participate in an Antenna Session, you find deep content and you will always learn something significant. It's a completely different picture. That's one of the great virtues of the community: it offers you learning with real content, which goes beyond whether you liked the artist or not. It's about understanding a process, a technique, or even a way of seeing the world, something you rarely find in other experiences.
Of all the sessions, the ones I like the most are those where we enter into the artist's privacy. It is fascinating to understand how they have lived and suffered art, how they have transformed difficult life experiences through their work. Those moments in which art becomes a means of resilience and reinvention are, for me, the most valuable learning.
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