| Description: | Jimena Pardo spent her early childhood in Chile, living in the shadow of the repressive Pinochet dictatorship which seized power in September 1973, ushering in an era of detention, torture and disappearance. Her parents were among the thousands detained in the early months. Jimena was left in the care of her grandmother – to whom this arpillera is dedicated – and sometimes went with her to visit her parents in Tres and Cuatro Alamos detention centres. “I hold a deep admiration for [my grandmother’s] resilience … she did everything she could to support my parents and keep me safe”.
In 1976, Jimena and her mother Cristina made their way to England; her father joining them later. Like so many Chileans in these years, exile was their only option. Settling in the host country, bereft of extended family supports - particularly her grandparents - was difficult, yet they found a way to stay in touch through cassette tapes: “…My parents would record me, and they would send these cassettes to my grandparents”.
Participating in an online arpillera workshop on exile and memory ‘Arpillerando el Exilio’ facilitated by Chilean arpillerista Maria Alicia Salinas Farfan seeded this arpillera. “I always wanted to document how we used tapes as a form of communication…. how we expressed our existence, and our love and tried to keep a family connection even though we were so far apart”. Working through the arpillera medium "… adding the mountains … recreating a photo of my grandmother alongside my message to her" enabled Jimena to “express my longing to return to Chile”.
Through this arpillera, Jimena, who still has an unposted tape was “finally able to share the cassette that was never sent…I can hear my younger self and my mother's voice …it is moving to … travel back in time”. The words unravel from the tape across the Atlantic ocean, over the Andes mountains, to her grandparents in Chile. These deeply poignant, deeply personal words inscribed on the arpillera, “Dear Grandma, I love you, I miss you, your Jimenita always”, are part of the wider exile narrative. They epitomise “… a collective story of exile … stories from other refugees [who] also sent tapes back home”. Her name and identity stitched on the back of the arpillera “Hija del exilio, daughter of exile” is testimony to the experience of the estimated 200,000 people who were forced to leave Chile during the dictatorship era.
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