Art and Power

Art as Resistance: Memory, Marginality, and Mourning in Latin America

Art carves out its own space among beauty and pain. It stirs consciousness and illuminates hidden truths. Art becomes a channel for connection and storytelling beyond conventional systems. It is a pulse of awareness—a web of information and collectivity (Perez, 2020).

Artists create to reflect the world, denounce it, and reshape it. This blog post examines the profound intersection of art and power, exploring how creative acts can serve as tools of resistance, remembrance, and the reclamation of human rights.

From the stitched testimonies of Chilean Arpilleras to the fractured floors of Fragmentos, forged from surrendered weapons, and the resilient life of Juanito Laguna in xilografies made with recycled materials, each work has the spirit of defiance and dignity. 

These pieces depict suffering but also challenge the status quo and the dominant narratives of a period, elevating the voices of the abused. Through art, they create memory from pain and teach what power cannot erase.

Arpilleras
Chile, 1970s–1990s | Anonymous Women’s Collectives

Arpilleras are textile artworks stitched by Chilean women during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1990). Created from scraps of cloth and jute—a fibrous plant material—they depict daily life under an oppressive regime marked by disappearances, poverty, and fear.

Their anonymity resists patriarchal and authoritarian erasure, making Arpilleras a symbol of communal resilience and subversive storytelling (Jayakumar, 2021). Conceived in secret workshops and smuggled abroad, these textiles raised global awareness of human rights abuses and censorship and documented the trauma of the authoritarian ruler.

The scenes stitched into these cloths reveal raw, everyday truths: children gathered around sparse communal meals, long lines for food, and the haunting absence of loved ones. Some pieces show women standing vigil outside prison walls. Others capture acts of protest—women chaining themselves to fences in defiance (Bradshaw, 2019).

I find Arpilleras deeply moving. Their handmade textures hold a striking dichotomy: vivid colors woven with sorrow. Stitching grief into bright and alive cloth communicates a sadness that resists oblivion. It’s hard to explain how so much color can evoke such a mournful feeling. That contradiction is part of their power.

Art Elements

• Texture: The tactile layering of fabric scraps creates visual and emotional depth. The coarse burlap base, often repurposed from sacks, evokes a sense of both roughness and delicacy.
• Composition: The narrative scenes are fragmented yet cohesive. Frames telling different stories form a unified whole and mirror the fractured realities of experiencing that abhorrent time in history.

Initially intended for international audiences, Arpilleras were distributed through human rights networks to inform people abroad of Chile’s atrocities. Today, they are preserved in museums and archives worldwide, remaining publicly accessible.

Juanito Laguna Series
Argentina, 1950s–1970s | Antonio Berni

Antonio Berni’s Juanito Laguna series expresses social realism, critiquing poverty and industrialization in mid-century Argentina. Juanito, a fictional child from Buenos Aires’s slums, is made from discarded material—metal and wood scraps, cardboard—transforming trash into art.

Berni’s literalizes the marginalization of the poor while elevating Juanito as a symbol of resilience. These works confront neglect in Latin America, reframing invisibility as a form of dignity. They urge viewers to recognize the humanity of those that society discards (Castagnino, n.d.).

Juanito’s gaze haunts me. There is sadness and abandonment—a child orphaned by the system. His world feels both tender and brutal. The series invites reflection on class inequality, visibility, and the ethics of those who choose not to see the forgotten. Juanito Laguna puts needles in your heart and makes you question why you are so comfortable in your comfortable home.

                                                    

Art Elements

• Line: Berni’s strong, decisive outlines emphasize fragmentation and speak with a loud tone intended to shake you. His use of xilografía (woodcut printmaking) evokes ancient techniques and enduring power through edges and sorrows.
• Color: Rust, gray, faded blue, yellow, and green, and dark tones evoke a sense of decay and coldness. Yet occasional bursts of color scream: Please see me. I am here. The color of Juanito's life is rough and raw.

Berni's work was displayed in public museums and international galleries. These exhibitions targeted upper-class viewers to confront poverty and the consequences of waste and industrial progress in modern societies.

Fragmentos
Bogotá, Colombia, 2018 | Doris Salcedo

Fragmentos is a counter-monument (a form of public art that challenges traditional monuments), it is forged from 37 tons of melted weapons surrendered by FARC after Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement. Created by Doris Salcedo along with survivors of sexual violence, the installation’s floor invites all visitors to step upon the remnants of a long and turbulent war. 

The conflict began in May 1964, when FARC formed as a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group challenging the Colombian government. What started as an ideological rebellion soon spiraled into a tangled war involving paramilitaries, drug cartels, and state forces. Over five decades, it left more than 250,000 people dead and displaced millions, scarring the country with violence and loss (History Rise, 2024).

More than a gallery, Fragmentos fosters art that preserves the memory of war. It has become a space of reflection, dialogue, and gathering—for victims of conflict and all who enter. Through exhibitions, workshops, and public conversations, it invites a collective reckoning with violence, peace, and the long, unfinished work of reconciliation (Fundación Rogelio Salmona,n.d).

Fragmentos feels like stepping into a silent and loud wound that narrates through material transformation—a reminder of decay by human hands and hope by the same hands. Literally, you are taking steps into history, a history of blood and violence. This floor is a reminder, a cautionary tale, a teacher. If time has a way to be represented, this is one of life made of squares for permanence and a reflection on the possibility of change.

Art Elements

• Shape: The floor tiles are irregular and scarred. They are made from fragments of weapons converted into the unity of many tiles.
• Form: It is made of squares and the natural divider lines of the placement. 

Fragmentos is open to the public in Bogotá as part of the Museo Nacional’s Espacio de Arte y Memoria. It was designed for Colombian conflict survivors and aimed to engage global audiences interested in reconciliation and peace-building through art.

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References:

- Vera, Hernan. “What Is an Arpillera?” The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, https://benton.uconn.edu/web-exhibitions-2/arpillera/what-is-an-arpillera/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.

- Jayakumar, Kirthi. “Arpilleras: Chile's Women Weave Tapestries of Truth.” The Gender Security Project, 2021, https://www.gendersecurityproject.com/decolonial-healing-justice/arpilleras-chiles-women-weave-tapestries-of-truth. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025

- Fundació Ateneu Sant Roc. “¿Qué es una arpillera?” Fundació Ateneu Sant Roc, https://fundacioateneusantroc.org/es/ateneu-arpilleres/que-es-una-arpillera/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.

- Bradshaw, Elizabeth. “Stitching Resistance: The History and Politics of Chilean Arpilleras.” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, 2018, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/1069/.

- Castagnino+macro. Antonio Berni: Juanito Laguna y el grabado en la colección Castagnino+macro. Museo Castagnino+macro, https://castagninomacro.org/uploadsarchivos/antonio_berni__juanito_laguna_y_el_grabado_en_la_coleccion_castagnino_macro.pdf. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.

- Museo Nacional de Colombia. “Fragmentos: Espacio de Arte y Memoria.” Museo Nacional, https://www.museonacional.gov.co/en/fragmentos. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.

- History Rise. The Colombia Conflict: Peace Accords, Guerrillas, and Resurgence Explained. 21 Sept. 2024, https://historyrise.com/the-colombia-conflict-peace-accords-guerrillas-and-resurgence/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025

- Fundación Rogelio Salmona. “Fragmentos: Contra-Monumento.” Fundación Rogelio Salmona, https://www.fundacionrogeliosalmona.org/obrasinscritascuartociclo/fragmentos-contra-monumento-.Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.

- Pérez, Rolando. “Rhetoric of Disobedience: Art and Power in Latin America.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 55, no. 3, 2020, pp. 547–561. Cambridge University Press, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/latin-american-research-review/article/rhetoric-of-disobedience-art-and-power-in-latin-america/3D30F3EFDB5ADFC9DEB51156086DAF3A. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025

- Augusto Pinochet. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Oct. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

Editorial Note: This post was reviewed and proofread with the assistance of Grammarly.com.