The Atacama is one of several gorgeous, seemingly lifeless deserts that make Chile look like another world. And that's why it's been popular with artists since before the days of the Inca. There's nothing like a blank landscape if you want to create a massive, haunting sculpture. And that's just what Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal has done here.


According to Atlas Obscura:

About 75km south of the town of Antofagasta [is] an 11-meter-tall hand protruding out of the sand. Mano de Desierto . . . was built in the early 1980s. It was financed by a local booster organization called Corporación Pro Antofagasta.


It really does look like something out of science fiction — or maybe out of the deep history of humanity, when we were first experimenting with the idea of art.

via Atlas Obscura

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Top image by John T.; others via Wikimedia Commons