Connected Constellations. Networks of Artistic and Political Solidarity with Chile

Contrary to the claim that the entire period seemed to be affected by a cultural blackout, an ‘affective community’ emerged, inside and outside the country, which prompted the rise of social movements fighting for democracy and developing a subversive counter-narrative to the dominant authoritarianism.

Adopting a global and transnational perspective to narrate Chilean political and cultural history, this workshop involves several scholars and artists, whose research and testimonies explore the context before and after the coup d'état of 11 September 1973, tracing the emergence of an ethics of solidarity in the Americas and Europe. This study day aims to identify the collaborations and dialogues that emerged in that scenario and the material and ideological conditions that determined them. Concurrently, it investigates the formal specificities of the artistic expressions that arose in response to censorship and a repressive dictatorial regime.

Speakers: Benedetta Calandra, Paulina Caro Troncoso, Héctor Roberto Carrasco, Lara Demori, Roberta Garieri, Elodie Lebeau-Fernandez, Vania Montgomery, Raffaele Nocera, Lucy Quezada, Alessandro Santoni

Program

09:45-10:00: Introduction – Roberta Garieri

10:00-10:20: Raffaele Nocera – Il Cile da Eduardo Frei Montalva al golpe dell'11 settembre 1973 [Chile from Eduardo Frei Montalva to the Coup of the 11th of September 1973]
10:20-10:40: Q&A

10:40-11:00: Lucy Quezada – The Instituto de Arte Latinoamericano in Chile: Art, Politics and Collaboration Networks
11:00-11:20: Q&A

11:20-11:40: Vania Montgomery – Antagonist Spaces: Visuality in Chile During the Dictatorship, between Gallery, Activism and the Street
11:40-12:00: Q&A

12:15-13:15: Lunch Break

Chair: Paulina Caro Troncoso

13:30-13:50: Benedetta Calandra – The Good Americans: Reti solidali tra Cile e Stati Uniti negli anni del regime militare [ The Good Americans: Solidarity Networks between Chile and the United States during the Years of the Military Regime]
13:50-14:10: Q&A

14:10-14:30: Elodie Lebeau-Fernandez – 'A Museum for the Chilean People'. Visual Arts and Solidarity with Chile in Times of Revolution and Exile (1971-1991)
14:30-14:50: Q&A

14:50-15:10: Alessandro Santoni – La causa cilena nell'Italia degli anni di piombo: significati e lasciti della solidarietà [The Chilean Cause in the Italy of the Years of Lead: Meanings and Legacies of Solidarity]
15:10-15:30: Q&A

15:30-15:50: Roberta Garieri – La Mostra Incessante per il Cile a Milano (1973-1977) in nome della solidarietà [The Mostra Incessante per il Cile in Milan (1973-1977) in the Name of Solidarity]
15:50-16:10: Q&A

16:10-17:30: Screening of the documentary Brigada Ramona Parra (1970), followed by the panel discussion Il muralismo cileno: dalla Brigada Ramona Parra all’esilio [Chilean Muralism: from the Brigada Ramona Parra to Exile]. Speakers: Héctor Roberto Carrasco, Paulina Caro Troncoso, Lara Demori, Roberta Garieri

Benedetta Calandra is Associate Professor in the History and Institutions of the Americas and is responsible for the selection of non-EU students for the Intercultural Studies in Languages and Literatures degree course at the University of Bergamo. She has been an associate fellow for Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Europe, Bologna centre (2016-2018) and a member of the Board of the Italian Society for International History (2018-2021). Her research interests focus on human rights, democratic transitions, civil associationism and sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America and the United States. Her recent publications include: “Cultural philanthropy and political exile. The Ford Foundation between Argentina and The United States (1959-1979)”, Revista Tempo, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brasil, 25, 2, 2019; “'It Is Not a Part of American History That We Are Proud of'. Declassification Projects in the United States (1993-2002)”, in Allier, Crenzel, The Struggles for Memory in Latin America. Recent History and Political Violence (Palgrave MacMillan 2015); La guerra fría cultural en América Latina (Biblos 2012).

Born in Santiago de Chile in 1954, Héctor Roberto Carrasco is one of the founders of the Chilean muralist group Brigada Ramona Parra. He is a graphic designer, muralist, and cultural worker and lives and works in Italy since 1974, when he arrived as a political refugee after the advent of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. He became an Italian citizen in 2010. He made a great number of murals in Italy and abroad; these could be found in public squares, on city walls, in theatres, schools, and gyms and in large and small towns. In many of these places he has worked collaboratively especially with young people, creating with them several paintings that today remain as visual evidence of Carrasco’s trajectory in the art of muralism and of public spaces. Since 2008, he has been the manager in Italy of the music group Inti Illimani Histórico, taking care of their musical tours in Europe.

Elodie Lebeau-Fernandez holds a PhD in art history and history from the Université de Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is currently an associate member of the FRAMESPA laboratory and teaches at the Université de Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès. Her doctoral research focuses on the artistic and political collections and networks developed by the Museo de la Solidaridad and then the Museo Internacional de la Resistencia Salvador Allende. She is the author of numerous articles in academic journals and collective books. In 2016, she was assistant curator to Charles Esche for the exhibition 'The Lost Museum', part of the contemporary art festival Le Printemps de Septembre at the Musée Paul Dupuy in Toulouse.

Vania Montgomery graduated in art history and theory from the Universidad de Chile and specialized in archivist studies at the same university. She has worked as a researcher and archivist on projects involving artists such as Víctor Hugo Codocedo and Eugenio Dittborn, as well as on artworks that emerged from the student movement of 2011.In 2021 she co-curated an exhibition on the relationship between art and censorship at the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile, and in 2022 she participated in the Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo's curatorial residency program, where she deepened his curatorial research, concluding with an exhibition at the Centro Cultural España. She is currently part of the Media Studies department of the collective Redes y Enlaces de Arte Latinoamericano and is pursuing a research on censorship during the dictatorship.

Raffaele Nocera is Associate Professor in History and Institutions of the Americas at the University of Naples 'L'Orientale' and coordinator of the PhD program in International Studies at the same university. He is responsible for several national and international scientific projects and maintains close relations with several Chilean universities. His publications on Chile include: Acuerdos y desacuerdos. La DC italiana y el PDC chileno: 1962-1973 (Fondo de Cultura Económica 2015), Italia a través de los informes diplomáticos chilenos, 1924-1940, (Diagram 2017), Il sogno infranto. DC, l’Internazionale democristiana e l’America Latina (1960-80) (Carocci 2017), Un protagonismo recobrado: la Democracia Cristiana chilena y sus vínculos internacionales (1973-1990) (Ariadna 2021), Creer, obedecer, combatir hasta el fin del mundo. El fascismo italiano en Chile (1922-1950) (Fondo de Cultura Económica 2022), De la utopía al estallido. Los últimos cincuenta años en la historia de Chile (Fondo de Cultura Económica 2022).

Lucy Quezada is an art history researcher with a master degree in art history and theory from the Universidad de Chile. She is currently a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin (ANID - Fulbright Scholar). Her doctoral research explores the official field of visual arts during the military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile and Brazil between 1960 and 1980. Her previous research projects focused on cultural institutions in Chile in the early 1970s, such as the Museo de la Solidaridad and the Instituto de Arte Latinoamericano. She has participated in conferences in Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and the United States. In Chile, she has written for the magazines Artishock, Arte e Crítica and edited catalogue texts for several contemporary art projects. Since 2015, she has been a member of Colectivo Charco, with which she has created performances in public spaces and collaborative art projects. From 2021 to 2022 she was a Mellon Fellow in Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art.

Alessandro Santoni holds a doctorate in contemporary political history from the University of Bologna and is a scholar of the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile since 2010. He has been directing the Master in International Studies at IDEA-USACH since 2018. He is the author of several publications centered on the international dimension of Chilean political history in the 20th century, including: El comunismo italiano y la vía chilena. Los orígenes de un mito político (RIL 2011). Un protagonismo recobrado: la DC chilena y sus vínculos internacionales (1973-1990) (Ariadna 2021).

Online participation is possible via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZArf-CqqDwpHtO8xsoHdKvOfU3oNYKH3INj

Scientific Organization: Roberta Garieri

^{Image: "Manifestazione internazionalista per il Cile" on September 14, 1974 organized by Collettivo Autonomo Pittori di Porta Ticinese. G. Rubino Archive}