Santiago de Chile, June 6 (EFE).- Revolts as a creative process and the “re-turn” as an act of resuming a legitimate purpose regardless of the temporal sequence of collective struggles, are the axis of an exhibition in Santiago de Chile that vindicates the power of union that the uprisings in Latin America have left since the last decade of the 60s.
Under the title ‘Graphic re-turns. Multitudes to change life’, Cynthia Shuffer, Javiera Manzi, Nicole Cristi, Isidora Neira and Paulina Varas, curators and researchers attached to the Network of Southern Conceptualisms (RedCSur), mix different forms of artistic expression such as photography, painting or screen printing to revalue the word revolt.
“Its meaning has been distorted by certain political sectors that have linked it to vandalism in the streets,” photographer and researcher Cynthia Shuffer denounces to EFE.
“We want to highlight the legitimacy of the protests and connect them with past ones, such as the social outbreak of October 18, 2019. The exhibition seeks to reconnect us with the spirit of transformation, showing the hopeful side in each piece presented,” he adds.
The exhibition covers eight axes: ‘Pop-litic’, ‘Pasafronteras’, ‘Let’s desalambrar!’, ‘Persistence of memories’, ‘Graphic proximity’, ‘Cuir Library’, ‘Untimely’ and ‘Cookery’.
It exhibits pamphlets from the Ramona Parra Brigade, the ‘Pop-lithic’ art of Guillermo Núñez, the interventions on road signs by the Mapuche visual artist Gonzalo Castro Colimil and posters from different groups from countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Peru or Bolivia.
Likewise, it includes a section dedicated to Gaza with collections such as the typographic prints ‘Genocidio’ (2023), by visual artist Javier del Olmo.
Most of the objects exhibited are “elements that are not necessarily made for museums, but are materials of struggle that inhabited the walls,” Shuffer says.
“The official story has been responsible for blurring the personal and collective record that historically we have always been multitudes, a feature present throughout the exhibition through different perspectives, which also evokes the memory of those who are no longer here, those who have missing and those who were murdered,” he adds.
For her colleague, the sociologist Javiera Manzi, the exhibition is inspired by the imagination displayed by the contexts of mobilizations, since each uprising represents an expansion of creative repertoires.
“This repertoire belongs to us, it is part of our history and collective memory, so by studying these graphs we can understand how they are activated and use them to build a better future” emphasizes the sociologist, for whom the heart of the exhibition is the area ‘ Cocinerías’, an opportunity to explore a wide set of graphic tools.
Feminism is also added as a key element, as evidenced by the title itself, ‘Multitudes to change life’, taken from the poem ‘I want to be our names’, by the Chilean feminist Julieta Kirkwood, published in 1982 and which reflects the desire of the artist for breaking the silence imposed by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
In this sense, the curatorial proposal, the result of 8 years of research, exhibits the feminist expressions that have emerged over recent years in different Latin American countries, from the abortion marches in Argentina to the performance of Las Theses in Chile, and the world.
Although it focuses on Chilean territory, the research had a first exhibition in Spain and Mexico, under the title ‘Graphic Turn, like the ivy on the wall’, and a derivative integrated into the commemoration events of the 50 years of the coup d’état in Uruguay, titled ‘Graphic Turn. Rumors and clamors from the south’.
Developed by more than 50 people, the exhibition will be open until June 16 at the La Moneda Cultural Center in Santiago, Chile.
Núria Morchón
(c) EFE Agency
