This arpillera returns to the traditional style with the background of the Andes mountains and a flaming red sun under which figures toil carrying water. The poor people depicted here have had their water supply cut off by the government in order to bully them into silence and stopping their anti-government protests.
The vibrant colours mirror the courage and resilience of these ordinary people, who, undaunted, carried buckets to their middle-class neighbours and asked them for water. The water tanks are visible in the bottom right hand corner, which the women filled that day in order to journey back to their communities victoriously bearing water.
The arpillera typifies the creativity and sheer determination of people working collectively, to provide a basic need for their families and communities, a need denied to them by the dictatorship. In the words of Marjorie Agosín (2008): “They participated in all kinds of demonstrations against the dictatorship”.
The legacy of the Pinochet Regime remains visible in Chile's 14 year 'megadrought' which began in 2010. The dictator brought in an unprecedented and strongly pro-business water policy in 1981, privatising the ownership of water through a market of buying and selling of water usage rights. As a result the majority of Chile's water has been diverted to corporate interests. Despite current debates on reform this policy remains a part of Chile's constitution.
The country's largest industries - mining of copper and lithium, and agriculture, are water intensive, often contaminating local water sources or drying up the flow of water to small communities and indigenous peoples further downstream who rely on the water for domestic use. Across Chile people rely on their daily allowance of 50 litres of water to come from water tankers, often having to consume water which is dirty and in 2021 more than half of the population of Chile faced severe water scarcity in their area according to UNCHR published on the 3rd January 2024. | 
