Chile · international solidarity networks / 1970s–1980s · Benton acquired its group in 1988
Arpilleras of resistance
A cloth can carry testimony
Arpilleras made daily hardship and repression visible through stitched scenes. The Benton Museum describes women using these textiles to denounce hunger, unemployment and disappearances, and acquired fifty through the Vicaría de la Solidaridad in 1988. They connect domestic skills to public testimony and networks of support. A stitched image deserves to be read as an act of political speech, not treated as an attractive folk pattern stripped of its makers’ circumstances.
- Date
- 1970s–1980s · Benton acquired its group in 1988
- Maker / designer
- Chilean women; individual makers vary
- Material
- Patchwork, stitching and textile backing
- Context
- Women’s testimony against the Pinochet dictatorship; no assumption that every maker shared one ideology.
Evidence: Date is a period or later photograph · Place established
Historical record
- The Benton Museum acquired fifty arpilleras through the Vicaría de la Solidaridad in 1988.