Books
Art Against Dictatorship by
Art can be a powerful avenue of resistance to oppressive governments. During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, some of the country's least powerful citizens--impoverished women living in Santiago's shantytowns--spotlighted the government's failings and use of violence by creating and selling arpilleras, appliquéd pictures in cloth that portrayed the unemployment, poverty, and repression that they endured, their work to make ends meet, and their varied forms of protest. Smuggled out of Chile by human rights organizations, the arpilleras raised international awareness of the Pinochet regime's abuses while providing income for the arpillera makers and creating a network of solidarity between the people of Chile and sympathizers throughout the world. Using the Chilean arpilleras as a case study, this book explores how dissident art can be produced under dictatorship, when freedom of expression is absent and repression rife, and the consequences of its production for the resistance and for the artists. Taking a sociological approach based on interviews, participant observation, archival research, and analysis of a visual database, Jacqueline Adams examines the emergence of the arpilleras and then traces their journey from the workshops and homes in which they were made, to the human rights organizations that exported them, and on to sellers and buyers abroad, as well as in Chile. She then presents the perspectives of the arpillera makers and human rights organization staff, who discuss how the arpilleras strengthened the resistance and empowered the women who made them.
ISBN: 9780292743823Publication Date: 2013-09-15
Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love by
Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love tells the story of ordinary women living in terror and extreme poverty under General Pinochet's oppressive rule in Chile (1973-1989). These women defied the military dictatorship by embroidering their sorrow on scraps of cloth, using needles and thread as one of the boldest means of popular protest and resistance in Latin America. The arpilleras they made_patchwork tapestries with scenes of everyday life and memorials to their disappeared relatives_were smuggled out of Chile and brought to the world the story of their fruitless searches in jails, morgues, government offices, and the tribunals of law for their husbands, brothers, and sons. Marjorie Agos'n, herself a native of and exile from Chile, has spent more than thirty years interviewing the arpilleristas and following their work. She knows their stories intimately and knows, too, that none of them has ever found a disappeared relative alive. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1989 and democracy returned to Chile, no full account of the detained and disappeared has ever been offered. Still, many women maintain hope and continue to make arpilleras, both in memory and as art. This new edition of the book, updated for students, includes a reaction to the death of General Pinochet, a chronology of Chile, several new testimonies from arpilleristas in their own words, and an introduction by Peter Kornbluh. It retains a section of full-color plates of arpilleras, an afterword by Peter Winn, and a foreword by Isabel Allende. Students and interested readers will find the arpilleras beautiful, moving, and ultimately hopeful, and the testimonies a powerful way to learn about the history of contemporary Latin America and the arpillera movement in Chile.
ISBN: 9780585178998Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Articles and Chapters
- Chilean Arpilleras: Writing a Visual Culture This paper highlights a recent inquiry into the contemporary visual culture of the Chilean arpillera from a cross-global perspective. This art form derived from political, social, and economic conditions of the times yet contemporary manifestations do not address these origins. Arpilleras, historically created in the home and sewn by hand, are constructions in which bits of discarded cloth and burlap were used to compose pictorial narratives. The art form arose in Chile during a period of intense political oppression. This manifestation of women’s fiber art has and continues to serve as both seditious and reconstructive forms of visual culture. While the government of Chile has undergone tremendous change since early arpilleras were created in response to atrocities committed by the Pinochet regime in the 1970s and 80s, the original intention and audience of the arpillera has changed as well. As an American traveling to Chile, I was excited to have an opportunity to see these works of art in person. Yet I discovered that the once powerful form of political resistance is no longer created to tell personal stories of oppression or acknowledge the lives of those disappeared and murdered. Rather, contemporary arpilleras (excluding those in museums) display playful images of rural Chilean life and idyllic landscapes. Arpilleras, once a subversive way to communicate to humanitarian organizations outside Chile, are now a bright, colorful commodity packed into suitcases and proudly shared as souvenirs. This robust part of Chilean tourism-sold as wall-hangings and cards, are manufactured by machine in workshops staffed with a predominantly male workforce. In this paper I seek to tease out the ways in which these changes potentially alter the value and impact of arpilleras within visual culture by asking how do these contemporary manifestations reflect the Chilean cultural identity yet ignore it as well?
- Chilean Women and Democratization: Entering Politics through Resistance as Arpilleristas. Historically, women played a very traditional role in Chilean society, and under Pinochet women were assumed to continue playing a private role while men dominated the public sphere of politics. Ironically, Pinochet's regime with its neo-liberal economic policies and political oppression resulted in women's collective action which meant that women's role in politics was transformed. They now began to play more public roles as they took on more economic and political roles outside the home. This article focuses on the arpillera workshops which allowed women to play an important political role in the democratization process and assist in removing Pinochet from power. After the transition to democracy, women's political role was not suddenly and unequivocally expanded, but the election of Michelle Bachelet illustrates the legacy of the arpillera movement and how women have become more effective public actors and active participants in Chilean democracy.
- International Relations and/as Thread-work: A Dialogue on Threads, War and Conflict This intervention reflects on the opportunities for textile art, and its exhibition and making, to inform our study of conflict, violence, and resistance in International Relations. In a dialogue drawing on the Threads, War and Conflict exhibition at the Byre Theatre, St Andrews, this piece grounds our understanding of violence and its resistance through engagement with materials displayed at and promoting the exhibition. Our discussion of the exhibition and its associated events draws on metaphors of thread-work to explore the contributions of textile to international relations and the possibilities that textiles' material, affective and transgressive politics hold.
- Mirror of Strength Chapter 19 of the book "Other Within Us: Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging," is presented. It discusses the arpitteras made in Santiago, Chile, as a way for poor women to earn money and their evolution into a political phenomenon. Women began to make arpilleras that showed their own lives under Augusto Pinochet Ugarte's dictatorship documenting terror in Chile. The arpilleristas, especially older women, are reportedly fighting a battle for justice and restoration of democracy in Chile.
- A needle, a lamp, a loom The article aims to understand some common aspects in Latin America, assuming dictatorships create identifications among their countries. Despite the consequences and difficulties of this governmental system, some Latin American women found alternatives to face and to resist the established power through the practice of collective embroidery. In their pieces, they bring to light the non-official history, denouncing the violation of human rights, expressing their feelings and sharing their experiences. As examples of actions of these groups of women, there are cases from Argentina, Colombia and Chile which, in the attempt to overcome what victimized them, transformed art into a political tool.
- The Role and Example of Chilean and Argentinian Mothers in Democratisation This paper explores the development issue of democratization from a gendered perspective, emphasizing the need to look for the building blocks of democracy within civil society sectors where women play a key role. Chilean and Argentinian women prove an important example for sustainable political development through their role as mothers, particularly in the 1980s in the movements to protest against political disappearances. The author demonstrates how these women's practical endeavors have made them an indispensable ingredient in the achievement of real democratic development at the grassroots level, and how they serve as a model for policy-makers in developing countries elsewhere.
