| Description: | Each of these 10 pañuelos / handkerchiefs, of varying shapes and sizes commemorates one of the many people killed and forcibly disappeared in Chile, Colombia and Mexico in recent decades. Some are embroidered in mono colour, others depict a printed image of the face of the disappeared person.
They were made by the families and relatives of the disappeared as a way to publicly denounce the deaths and enforced disappearancess and reconnect with the memory of their loved one through the physical act of stitching. At various Conflict Textiles exhibitions in Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2010 – 2020, curator Roberta Bacic was entrusted with these pañuelos. One of the Chilean pañuelos dates from the 1970s. Here, crossing decades and countries, they are all connected in a bunting arrangement which facilitates adapting them to the exhibition space.
The contrast in size, colour and technique invites us to reflect on these 10 people from different countries, of different ages, who held a multitude of roles in their families and wider community. Their presence is now an absence.
They remind us of the 1,192 cases of forced disappearance, 2,995 executions and 38,254 victims of political imprisonment and torture in Chile. Memoria Viva - Proyecto Internacional de Derechos Humanos. They confront us with the 150,000+ people killed in the ‘War on drugs’ and the estimated 37,000 cases of disappearances in Mexico Human Rights Watch (2019) "Mexico: The Other Disappeared". They demand truth and justice for the 280, 619 people killed, and 45,000 forcibly disappeared in the five-decade armed conflict in Colombia.(“Peace in Colombia: Hopes and Fears” New Internationalist 497, November 2016). |
