I am exploring the subject of arpilleras for two assignments at school. The first is a virtual exhibition and the second is a critical examination of a subculture.

For my virtual exhibition, I was first interested in using the work of exiled Chilean artists who were active during the time of the Pinochet regime. I knew I was going about the assignment backwards — it’s much better practice to find work that inspires an idea rather than having an idea and trying to find the work to support it — but I was fairly passionate about using work that had strong political and cultural themes. In trying to find information about the Brigada Ramona Parra, I came upon an essay about arpilleras and the anonymous women who made them, beginning in the mid-70s, primarily as a means of income.

Reading Jacqueline Adams’s “Art in Social Movements: Shantytown Women’s Protest in Pinochet’s Chile”, I realized I could also explore the group as a subculture for a separate assignment. Researching this group in the contexts of visual art and critical examination has proven to be instrumental in shaping my approach to both assignments.

The other essay I am using to formulate my argument is Eliana Moya-Raggio’s “Arpilleras: Chilean Culture of Resistance”. One of the main differences between Adams and Moya-Raggio is that Adams focus is primarily on arpilleras as art and how the art form is used to frame and carry out a social movement (21), whereas Moya-Raggio takes a far more feminist approach by asserting the incorporation of “women as active participants in the struggle” (278).

What’s interesting to me is that Adams’s essay was published in 2002; Moya-Raggio’s was published in 1984. Moya-Raggio’s view is far more forward-thinking, especially for its time and geographical placement, crediting the women with creating a form of resistence:

When a woman conveys in an arpillera the settlement’s water shutoff, the lack of work, of food, of health care; when she illustrates the discovery of corpses in Yumbel or Longquen, she becomes an agent of change, a narrator of the people’s struggle, an expositor of the contradictions of the imposed system. She does not use words because words have been denied her (278).

Conversely, in a paragraph near the end of Adams’s essay under the heading “Gender Implications”, she reduces the women involved to a tool for the movement’s success:

…”typically” feminine arts (such as applique) can be very powerful political tools. … Maternal (caring) emotions can be useful for movements. … The shantytown women’s maternal distress and concern for their families’ welfare is in part what let them to create the arpilleras, useful for the movement in all the ways we have seen. The buyers’ caring about the women led to them buying the arpilleras, and support anti-Pinochet efforts, bringing resources to the movement.”

So… those are my preliminary thoughts on the essays at hand. More later perhaps.

UPDATE: To see my finished critical examination of arpilleristas as a members of a subculture, click here.

Works Cited:
Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements: Shantytown Women’s Protest in Pinochet’s Chile.” Sociological Forums 17 (2002): 21-52. JSTOR. OCAD, Toronto. 30 Oct. 2007. Keyword: Arpilleras.

Moya-Raggio, Eliana. “Arpilleras: Chilean Culture of Resistance.” Feminist Studies 10 (1984): 277-282. JSTOR. OCAD, Toronto. 30 Oct. 2007. Keyword: Arpilleras.

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