"Soup Kitchen in a Barrio", Chilean Arpillera, Taller Fundación Missio, Santiago, 1982- Photo by Martin Melaugh
About Arpilleras 

Arpilleras are simple and powerful objects. In them are threaded the affective, intimate and political realities of the arpilleristas (the makers).
Arpilleras are hand-sewn tapestries made from fabric scraps. They speak out visually, conveying processes of memory and the search for justice. They were first made in Chile by female relatives of victims of the dictatorship in the 1970s, and since then have been produced in different parts of the world. 

Arpilleras are simple and powerful objects. In them are threaded the affective, intimate and political realities of the arpilleristas (the makers).

When arpilleras were first made in Chile, these women were searching for a way to get together in solidarity and support each other. Times were very difficult, and as mothers, lovers, siblings, daughters, friends of victims or being victims themselves of human rights abuses, they found that looking into each others eyes was too painful. So they began to search for ways to come together and talk without having to talk, looking at each other without having to see each others pain . And thus they started experimenting and producing these tapestries that depicted their everyday lives.

Over time arpilleras became more and more political, representing their struggles and stories of resistance. They depicted soup kitchens, protests, police repression, spaces of solidarity and torture.
Arpilleras also began to travel the world. Through human rights organisations and churches, they were sent overseas and sold to people wanting to support those in Chile. So arpilleras also became a source of income for these arpilleristas.

More recently, arpilleras have been made by women in different parts of the world reflecting on a number of different issues. From conflicts in Tibet or Northern Ireland to Indigenous struggles in Chile, from anti-war to student movements, arpilleras continue to be used in different places as mediums to stitch resistance, memory and the search for a more just and peaceful world.
Wellington Arpilleras Collective- 2016
arpilleraswgtn@gmail.com
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All images by Wellington Arpilleras Collective are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.