witness

Last night I learned, again, about the power of women.

As a long-time feminist, it is not news to me that women - in the face of great fear, brutality and injustice - can show enormous powers of resistance. However, as I sat and listened to Dr Margorie Agosin talk on the Arpillera movement in Chile during Pinochet's brutal military dictatorship (1973 to 1989), I felt particularly moved by the capacity and courage of women to simply say no. To say, we will not be silenced, we will not believe lies, we will ask hard questions and, most importantly, we will bear witness to the injustices and tragedies that unfold around us.

No a las Alzas, No a la Dictadura, Basta de Hambre /
No to Inflation, No to Dictatorship, Enough of Hunger

The arpilleristas were women who met in the safety of church basements or in their poor neighbourhoods to craft small quilted, appliqued and embroidered three-dimensional artworks - what Agosin calls tapestries - that told the stories of their lives during this time. Using their traditional skills of needlework and composition, they forewent the customary scenes of Chilean countryside or idyllic representations of community life and instead told the stories of oppression, resistance, loss and protest that characterised their lives during this time. The pieces were sold to support themselves and their families, and they often made it out of Chile to an international audience which enabled the stories of a brutal regime to be heard beyond their borders.

¿Dónde están? / Where are They?

I want to share a little extract, in Agosin's words, from her book Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love.


She talks of the first time she met these women who would gather outside the Vicariate of Solidarity to make arpilleras. They had

bread bags filled with clumps of multicolored cloth and petitions for the government, demanding the whereabouts of their missing relatives. They looked determined, as if their lives were carried in those bags whose purpose was to find out about the fate of their loved ones. They were there with their lives, memories and families, all braided together and united through a scrap of cloth (2008, pg. 77).

This tale of women reclaiming their traditional skills to grieve, protest and witness the events of their time inspires me. While I could write many more paragraphs on this, in the interests of brevity (and your reading sanity) let me summarise, in simple point form, what moved me about the arpilleras.

• The stories themselves, as they were rendered in the cloth - these told of terrible loss, the disappearance of their husbands, sons and/or brothers; or told of torture; or told of active resistance despite the consequences.
• The way the pieces were fashioned - often out of scraps of fabric donated by the church and later, when they knew their "disappeared" men were dead, out of their men's clothes.
• The community of women working together to not only document terrible times, but to articulate their losses, their anger, and their resistance to what was happening to them and to Chile.
• And, the power of art and, in particular, women's traditional handiwork - so often dismissed as frippery - to forcefully observe, comment on, and to reject the violence of the men perpetuating the regime.

Aquí se Tortura / Here They Torture

I want to be like these women. I want to be strong, and brave, and to use my art, and the skills handed down to me by women over generations, not only to bring pleasure to people, but to be a witness, to resist injustice and wrongdoing, and to help others to do the same.

How wonderful that the creative world can offer us such riches. As I mentioned earlier, Dr Agosin's book on this history tells this story more eloquently and more powerfully than I ever could. Read it, if only so you can see the potential powers of transformation in your own work and hands.

** All images were taken from here (if you click on the picture it will take you directly to the source). Some, such as "Where are they?" were present at last night's talk.