Viuda

In September 1985, CADA produced a portrait of a woman whose husband had been killed in a political demonstration against the dictatorship in Chile; they accompanied the image with the following text: ‘Mirar su gesto extremo y popular. Prestar atención a su viudez y sobreviviencia. Entender a un pueblo.’ (‘To look at her gesture, extreme and popular. To pay attention to her widowhood and survival. To understand a people’). They published this work in several journals (‘Análisis’, ‘Cauce’, ‘Hoy’) and in the newspaper ‘Fortín Mapocho’, all critical of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. This art intervention was meant to celebrate civil protests against the dictatorship; these protests were brutally repressed by the government. ‘Viuda’ was meant to refer to this political situation, while pointing to women as surviving social subjects who remained in charge of entire families and homes after the disappearance of their husbands.Shown in this video clip are still images of the newspaper article.
(Fuente: Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library).