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

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.

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