From Cloth to Change

Today I viewed a handmade piece on the online Museum of Latin America Art called For the Right to Live with Dignity by Victoria Diaz. She made a quilted blanket-like piece with three different frames of artwork. The first frame shows a tractor moving land around while showing a water source at the top of a mountain. Next frame shows them filling their buckets with water and trying to get water from a truck that probably is their only clean water source. The final frame shows a factory polluting the air and the police arresting someone outside a store. All of these frames are her way of trying to raise awareness for climate change and pollution as well as her advocacy for clean water in Chile.

For the Right to Live with Dignity by Victoria Diaz

In the JSTOR article titled "As Protests Rage in Chile, These Patchwork Pictures Are More Relevant than Ever" by Liz Ohanesian, she analyzes the artwork made by Victoria Diaz and its message that applies to today. Ohanesian gives the current political status of Chile and how it matches up to what Diaz was advocating for in her artwork. As seen here, "The show includes one contemporary arpillera. For the Right to Live with Dignity by Victoria Diaz, creates three scenes that speak about environmental degradation and the need for clean water in Chile today" (Ohanesian 1). The artwork I talk about is one of the many made by the women of Chile who are trying to raise awareness for the problems they are facing. Many of the works made are all messages to the government trying to help with the environmental problems.

Work, Justice, and Freedom by Anonymous

My theme has been about the environment and how over time it has changed and what can cause these changes that make it so detrimental to the people living there. This artwork by Diaz is a perfect example of the changes that climate change is showing by the lack of clean water and air pollution. In the article, Ohanesian also mentions that Chile's political system is flawed as they are ignoring all of these calls for action to fix the pollution. Even in the artwork above, there is more call to action for the environment and it is a shared opinion by all of the inhabitants of Chile. I think this artwork is a great message and it should give inspiration to others to stand for what they believe in.

Works Cited

Ohanesian, L. (2019, December 9). As protests rage in Chile, these patchwork pictures are more relevant than ever. Retrieved May 10, 2022, from https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/chile-protests-arpilleras/