“El Derecho de Vivir en Paz: Libertad…?” (The Right to Live in Peace: Freedom…?)

This illustration is one of eight that forms part of a larger body of work created over the span of a decade. The series is based on her father’s recorded personal account of his experiences during the 1973 Chilean military coup. Together, the works comprise screen prints, transparencies and a hand-bound book. The visual is inspired by the Chilean political graphic style that was outlawed by the Pinochet dictatorship and disappeared amid the “national forgetting” perpetuated by later democratic governments.

El Derecho de Vivir en Paz: Libertad…? is the moment of her family’s release from imprisonment in the National Football Stadium into a country ruled by fear; not long after, they sought asylum in Calgary. This experience shaped many Chilean newcomers of the era and continues to echo for the people who frequent the Chilean Canadian Community Association in Westwinds. Ultimately, the work seeks to map where personal identity and national history collide in the lives of everyday citizens, and to shed light on a dark and under-recognized chapter in the geopolitical history of the 20th century. 

This illustration is one of eight that forms part of a larger body of work created over the span of a decade. The series is based on her father’s recorded personal account of his experiences during the 1973 Chilean military coup. Together, the works comprise screen prints, transparencies and a hand-bound book. The visual is inspired by the Chilean political graphic style that was outlawed by the Pinochet dictatorship and disappeared amid the “national forgetting” perpetuated by later democratic governments.

El Derecho de Vivir en Paz: Libertad…? is the moment of her family’s release from imprisonment in the National Football Stadium into a country ruled by fear; not long after, they sought asylum in Calgary. This experience shaped many Chilean newcomers of the era and continues to echo for the people who frequent the Chilean Canadian Community Association in Westwinds. Ultimately, the work seeks to map where personal identity and national history collide in the lives of everyday citizens, and to shed light on a dark and under-recognized chapter in the geopolitical history of the 20th century.