Arte, Mujer, Y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile
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The artwork created by Gabriela Martinez,
to illustrate the people of Chile fighting back for justice |
After viewing an electronic piece of art, through Molaa.org's online museum, I found this very colorful and meaningful piece of art.
The artist, Gabriela Martinez, the Director of Education at MOLAA, made the work to illustrate Chile in around 1990, when the Chilean citizens lived throughout the brutal seventeen year Pinochet regime. The artwork was not specifically made for anyone, but instead to show what has happened in Chile for many years now.
Martinez's work shows Chile and how traumatizing the era of Pinochet was for them. Officials at the time even tried to hide or deny the human rights abuses conducted under his administration. The art is very colorful, with bright-colored buildings, colorful brown mountains, and a shining sun in the top left corner. All of these deviate from Pinochet and what truly happened at the time in Chile.
The Pinochet Regime
Artists like Gabriela Martinez use drawings, paintings, music, etc., to express how they feel about the life they have to live in Chile. If you follow the link here to a video on Pinochet, you will truly see how bad he had treated Chile during his regime.
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Augusto Pinochet, leader of the
military junta that overthrew the
socialist government of President
Allende of Chile in 1973. |
According to another article I read on Pinochet from JSTOR, Chile has always been one of the "countries that has experienced the deepest international integration" (Davis-Hamel 1).
As Pinochet came in and took over, Chile ended up getting worse, as during his regime he executed from 1,200 to 3,200 people, had an internment count of as many as 80,000 people, and tortured tens of thousands of others.
"Arpilleras are Like Songs That One Paints"
Looking at the art, I could see a bright colorful city, with a bunch of people marching for justice in the bottom corner. The cop car following behind them shows how closely the government is watching them and constantly making sure they do not do anything against the law. I can feel the emotion going through the people's heads, as they walk through their homes, shown bright and colorful, as that is their only happiness at that moment in time.
Works Cited
DAVIS-HAMEL, ASHLEY. “SUCCESSFUL NEOLIBERALISM?: STATE POLICY, POVERTY, AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN CHILE.” International Social Science Review, vol. 87, no. 3/4, Pi Gamma
Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences, 2012, pp. 79–101,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41887539.
Parra, Violeta. “Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Online Exhibition - MOLAA: Museum of Latin American Art.” MOLAA, 2020, https://molaa.org/arpilleras-online.
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