Description: | The scene for this arpillera, third in a series of four, is also set in the south of Chile. We see Mapuche women carrying a banner that reads, "Freedom to our Mapuche Brothers." Demonstrations of this kind, expressing solidarity, took place in and around the communities affected by the imprisonment of their community members. Similar to the preceding arpillera, strong symbols of their cultural identity are depicted; we see the national climbing flower called copihue (co-pee-way / Mapudungun kopiwe) or Chilean bellflower. This has been adopted as the national flower of Chile and it grows in the forests of the south of the country and blooms in the late summer, early autumn.
Jaime Huenún, a Mapuche poet, who compiled and edited the book Lof Sitiado (Besieged group of families living in a determined piece of land), (Chile, LOM Ediciones, July 2011) comments on the solidarity extended to these Mapuche political prisoners from far beyond Chile: "This book is a testimony and offers its readers the genuine literary solidarity of the 105 authors of Chile, Latin America and Spain who were moved and reacted poetically in connection to the long hunger strike that 34 Mapuche political prisoners started on the 12th of July 2010."
Roberta Bacic adds: "I also extend solidarity through the textile language of these arpillera, as they too have been born from hard and painful experiences of human rights violations."
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