The Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage Extension Center (CENTEX) presents the exhibition “Embroidery Machines: Strands of History, Music and Creativity”a tribute to Chilean embroiderers that will take place between July 6 and December 1, 2024 in all its exhibition spaces, located at Sotomayor 233, Valparaíso.
This initiative reflects Centex’s history in the textile trade, which arose from the work carried out on the Fábrica Puelagalán project following the Valparaíso fires in 2014. Following this solidarity experience, in 2017, to celebrate Violeta Parra’s birthday, a path of recognition of embroidery and arpilleras as tools of social expression was initiated, promoting training and creative processes that highlight Violeta’s figure as an embroiderer and the textile trade as a national creative brand.
Since then, multiple activities have been developed at CENTEX around the textile trade, including talks, seminars, workshops and exhibitions. A decade after the start of these actions, various institutions and organizations have been called to create great recognition for the work of embroiderers, culminating in the exhibition “Embroiderers: Strands of History, Music and Creativity.”
The exhibition brings together 122 embroiderers and 92 works from four regions of the country (Valparaíso, Coquimbo, Arica Parinacota and RM) creating a space for convergence and exchange between artists, community organizations and institutions, around the axes of history, music and creativity.
The History axis will present a story with different episodes of embroidery in Chile, with exponents and creations that represent the history of the country.
Highlights include a special room for Violeta Parra, where the arpillera “La Brujita” by her author, restored and loaned by the Violeta Parra Museum, is being exhibited for the first time in Valparaíso, as well as photographs and texts that recount the steps of the Chilean artist through Valparaíso in the 40s and 60s.
Also, the Isla Negra Embroidery Machines and the exhibition of 4 unpublished textiles created in the last 5 years, in collaboration with the Seremi de Culturas de Valparaíso; the works of the Vicariate of Solidarity protected by the Museum of Memory, with arpilleras from the “Fundación Solidaridad” and “Isabel Morel Collection” collections; Solveig Norman (Stockholm, 1934), with “Hilo Rojo”, a series of works that narrate relevant chapters for the country.
Finally, “Text and Textile Hilvanan Cerro Cordillera” by the Embroiderers of Cerro Cordillera, a series of embroidery that was born from a reading aloud workshop of the book “Valparaíso Cerro Cordillera, Crónicas de Ensueño”, by the author Carlos Carstens Soto.
The second thematic axis, Music, is recognized as an inspiration in the creations of the embroiderers and artisans. Thus, “Discography of exile: sounds, colors and memory” is a curatorial proposal developed by musicologists Javier Rodríguez and Laura Jordán. From that experience emerges the textile work “Music of the Chilean exile: memory and creation”, created, thought out, and put together by a group of women in the heat of listening to these musics of exile.
For its part, “Threads that narrate” was born in the city of Arica from the association between Casa Cultural Yanulaque and Graciela Valencia Flores of Arpilleras con Memoria, who conducts the workshop of individual arpilleras with fabric application, inspired by the music of Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara.
The “For this and other reasons” cycle exhibits works that correspond to a selection of textiles made individually and collectively, created in workshops held at Centex in 2017, for the centenary of Violeta Parra’s birth in 2017 and inspired by the artist’s legacy.
The third axis, Creativity, highlights those women who have innovative and current proposals in relation to embroidery and which lead to other formats. It will be represented by La Zurcida, which will exhibit the textiles “La Gabriela”, “Guardianes de la Tierra” and “Guardianes de las Aguas”. For her part, Ana Karina Pizarro will bring her soft sculptures “Fauna Fantástica”, in addition to carrying out a co-creation process. Vicky Silva will also be there, with the work “Maternar. Ilusión, miradas y voces”, as well as the workshop “Poesía y Bordados”. Kika Covarrubias will close the creative theme, with three works of popular religiosity, and the Bordadoras Cerro Cordillera, who will bring the work “Texto y textil hilvan Cerro Cordillera”, based on the book by Carlos Carstens.
Throughout the entire second semester, CENTEX will offer the opportunity to encounter the world of embroidery, appreciating the skill and creativity of embroiderers, while recognizing their role in the preservation and transformation of our history and culture, with the final objective of promoting the appreciation and dissemination of the craft of embroidery. Each stitch, each work, is a treasure that enriches our culture and reminds us of the transformative power of art.
Activity program
- July 6th: opening
- July 8 and 9 (in person) and July 31 (online): Embroidery portrait workshop by La Zurcida.
- Thursdays August 8, 22 and 29; September 5, 12 and 26; October 3 and 10, from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Poetry and Embroidery Workshop with Vicky Silva.
- Wednesdays 14, 21, 28 August; 4, 11, 25 September; 2, 9, 16, 23 October; 6, 12, 20 November, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.: Fantastic Fauna School with Ana Karina Pizarro
- October 3 and 4: Activities in commemoration of the birth of Violeta Parra.
