Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile
Organized Resistance
Women begin meeting at arpillera workshops where they create textiles that can be sold to ease financial hardship. Workshops become sites of grassroots organization where groups of women plan protests and find solutions to sourcing electricity, water and food.
"The People United Will Never be Defeated!" is a chant you probably recognize from political rallies and marches. Did you know that the song originated in Chile as a response to the dictatorship? Quilapayún, a folk music group from the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement popularized it!
Have you heard other slogans like this one before? What other chants do you know?
Community arpillera workshops become sites of resistance where women share stories, organize protests and strategize for survival.
A typical pastoral scene, with all work done by women, denotes the absence of men, presumably imprisoned, missing, or dead.
Groups of women take to the streets in protest, risking their safety.
The protestors carry signs with pictures of loved ones that asked “Where are they?”
Human rights organizations respond to food shortages by establishing community-based soup kitchens operated by local women.
Women chain themselves to the fence outside the Congress building in protest.
Trucks loaded with water cannons are used by the police to break up protests. Named after the South American camelid, the “guanacos” douse protesters and often cause severe injuries.
“Enemies of the regime” are imprisoned for various reasons, including organizing against Pinochet, expressing leftist beliefs, or even for belonging to a labor union.
Left to provide for themselves and without the means to access electricity, women continue illicitly taking electricity from privatized powerlines.
As organization spreads, community soup kitchens become prevalent not only in urban centers but also in remote shantytowns.
Women greet each other peacefully in the morning light. Scenes like this are also considered a form of protest during the dictatorship.
Women unite with Labor unions, like the Workers’ United Center of Chile (CUT), on May 1st, International Workers’ Day.
“They were taken alive, we want them back alive”.
Fifteen years after the coup, Pinochet agrees to a plebiscite. A “yes” is a vote for him to remain in power while a “no” is a vote for free elections. Fifty six percent of voters say “NO.”
The hope for peace and justice in Chile.