| Description: | This arpillera gives us an insight into the many human rights abuses endured by Mexicans today, and is an homage to those who protest and struggle against them.
Speaking directly to other pieces in the “Stitched Voices” exhibition, the arpillera denounces the more than 150,000 deaths and more than 26,000 disappearances that have occurred in the country during the so-called “War on Drugs” – depicted through bodily shapes that seem to float through the air –, and particularly remembering the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa.
Stained with oily ink, this multifaceted arpillera also addresses the devastating impact of British Petroleum’s (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the largest accidental ocean spill in history. Finally, with the masked figures on the right, it pays tribute to the community-based resistance of the Zapatistas, a movement of indigenous communities in the southern state of Chiapas, who assert their collective rights to territory, autonomy, and self-determination.
The arpillera was made by London Mexico Solidarity in collaboration with Movimiento Jaguar Despierto, the Wretched of the Earth, Expresión Inca, and BP or not BP?. It was first shown when the group “BP or not BP?” occupied the British Museum’s Great Court in April 2016, staging “A history of BP in 10 objects” display as part of a campaign calling on the British Museum to drop BP as a commercial sponsor.
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