Thursday, 28 March 2024

Textile Details

'Sala de torturas / Torture  Chamber', by Violeta Morales. (Photo: Martin Melaugh)
'Sala de torturas / Torture  Chamber', by Violeta Morales. (Photo: Martin Melaugh)

 

Title of Textile:Sala de torturas / Torture chamber
Maker: Violeta Morales
Country of Origin: Chile
Year Produced: 1996
Size (cm): 52cm (w) x 47cm (l)
Materials: Scraps of materials hand sewn onto flour sack
Type of Textile: Arpillera
Description:

This is a most visually startling piece with its simple black background and stark white figures. It graphically shows people being tortured in various ways, portraying them in a dehumanised way with featureless faces, just as torture dehumanises individuals. The symbolic enclosure of the people held in captivity accurately describes life in Chile during those years.

Chile's second national Truth Commission Report on Torture and Political Imprisonment (Valech II) published in August 2011, states that the total number of people officially registered as torture victims, from the Pinochet era, is now 38,254. Memoria Viva - Proyecto Internacional de Derechos Humanos

In this arpillera, Violeta Morales is outspoken about Chile's infamous history of torture, which was long unknown in the wider world. As a member of the group Sabastián Acevedo, which was primarily concerned with the issue of torture, she was relentless in ensuring that people everywhere were informed of the widespread use of torture in Chile. With other women, she founded the Folkloric Musical Ensemble of Relatives of the detained-disappeared, as: "we also wished to sing our message of protest."

Agosin, M., (2008)

Violeta Morales died on 6 November 2001, never having found her brother Newton, who disappeared in 1974.

Owner: Conflict Textiles collection
Location: Conflict Textiles store
Original / Replica: Original
Photographer: Martin Melaugh
Provenance: Donation from Marjorie Agosín 2008.



Textile exhibited at: The Politics of Chilean Arpilleras, 8/02/2008 - 19/04/2008
Chilean Arpilleras , 11/09/2008 - 11/10/2008
The Politics of Chilean Arpilleras, 23/09/2008 - 23/09/2008
Arpilleras / Quilts that cry out, challenge and question, 12/11/2008 - 14/11/2008
Chilean Arpilleras: Tapestries of women’s lives and survival, 11/02/2009 - 12/02/2009
The Politics of Chilean Arpilleras II, 2/03/2009 - 31/03/2009
Threads of Destiny: Testimonies of Violence, Hope and Survival, 9/05/2009 - 26/07/2009
The Human Cost of War, 8/11/2009 - 21/11/2009
Stitching Resistance, 12/10/2010 - 16/01/2011
The Human Cost of War - An Exhibition of Quilts and Arpilleras, 4/11/2010 - 15/01/2011
Arpilleras e resistência política no Chile , 30/07/2011 - 30/10/2011
Arpilleras e resistência política no Chile, 3/11/2011 - 13/11/2011
Transforming threads of resistance, 27/02/2012 - 9/03/2012
Arpilleras of Chilean political resistance , 22/03/2012 - 5/06/2012
ÜberlebensKunst - Konfliktbearbeitung durch textile Bilder, 12/07/2012 - 26/08/2012
Arpilleras in contested spaces, 3/09/2013 - 6/09/2013
RETAZOS TESTIMONIALES: arpilleras de Chile y otras latitudes, 28/09/2013 - 10/11/2013
SMALL Actions BIG Movements, 1/07/2014 - 11/07/2014
Sew to Speak – Human Rights, 12/09/2014 - 14/09/2014
Textile Accounts of Conflicts, 17/11/2014 - 18/11/2014
Textile Accounts of Conflicts, 6/02/2015 - 7/03/2015
Stitched Voices / Lleisiau wedi eu Pwytho, 25/03/2017 - 13/05/2017
Stitched Voices - textila berättelse om politisk våld och motstånd , 29/08/2018 - 21/04/2019
II encuentro internacional de arte textil y resistencia, 22/08/2019 - 24/08/2019
Tras las huellas de los/as desaparecidos/as , 29/08/2019 - 31/08/2019
Chile 1973 , 22/02/2020 - 22/02/2020
Following the footsteps of the disappeared, 30/08/2020 - 30/08/2021
Following the Footsteps of the Disappeared 2021, 31/08/2021 - 20/12/2021
Tras las huellas de los/as desaparecidos/as, 10/01/2022 - 5/02/2022
Transformative Memory International Network 2022 MemoLab: Northern Ireland, 17/10/2022 - 6/11/2022
The role of textile language in global and regional human rights protection, 10/11/2022 - 10/11/2022
Anticolonial Archiving as Method, 10/03/2023 - 10/03/2023
Stitching Memory: Commemorating 50 years of solidarity in Scotland, 20/05/2024 - 31/05/2024



Textile Detail Image(s)

  Demonstration against torture by the group 'Movement Against Torture Sebastián Acevedo', as depicted in the textile ‘En Chile se tortura / Demonstration against torture’. Violeta Morales is at the front, third from right, (Photo: © Conflict Textiles)