| Description: | This colourful and somewhat childlike arpillera from the late 1970s, depicts a scene where campaigners are distributing pamphlets to pedestrians and drivers to raise awareness about the "Disappeared." According to Chile's fourth national Truth Commission Report on Torture and Political Imprisonment (Valech II), published in August 2011, there were a total of 3,216 cases of forced disappearance or political execution. A new state search initiative, announced in 2023, considers 1,469 of them to be still missing. Observatorio de Justicia Transicional, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile (2023)
Again, the traditional style of the mountains is represented here, using a myriad of colourful scraps of cloth. The sun, however, is not visible, perhaps symbolising the dangers that still prevailed. The large houses and trees indicate that this is not a shanty town; here the campaigners have been emboldened to bring their campaign into middle-class areas. Overall, this arpillera illustrates the relentless attempts made to reveal the unsavoury hidden truths which plagued certain groups within the society during the Pinochet era, truths which others often chose to ignore.
Jacquie Monty bought this arpillera, and several others, in the early 1980s whilst working for Oxfam on an exhibition focused on El Salvador and Chile. She donated it and two others (¿Dónde están nuestros hijos? / Where are our children?; Violencia en las calles de Santiago de Chile durante toque de queda / Violence in the streets of Santiago de Chile during curfew) to Conflict Textiles curator Roberta Bacic after meeting her at the exhibition The politics of Chilean Arpilleras organised by the Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS), University of Cambridge (2008).
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