WHAT: Sewing memories – Arpilleras, Sites & Memory @ Street 14 Cafe

We did it!

LEARN MORE AT THE LINK…

Sewing Memories, & Brains

WHERE: Street 14 Cafe, 1410 Commercial St, Astoria, OR 97103

WHEN: Saturday Art Walk, February 8, 2020, 5:00m – 7:00pm

*** NOTE: Arpilleras up at Street 14 until noon, Sunday (2/9)!

“We only have what we give.”
― Isabel Allende

Join artist and educator Cecilia Araneda from Valparaíso, Chile and discover how the art of arpilleras, the sewing of embroidery and patchwork to depict aspects of everyday life, has helped many express personal traumatic experiences and contribute to the memory of significant national violations of human rights.

“If you’re dancing somebody else’s dance, you’re not going to fight them“ – Carol Newman

Cecilia and Noggin will be on Arts – Live & Local! hosted by Cindy Price on public broadcasting station KMUN in Astoria Friday, February 7 at 3:40pm!

She did it!

Valparaíso Bay, September 11, 1973

LISTEN

Interview begins at ~41 minutes…

Friday, Feb 7th at 3 pm, ARTS – Live & Local! With Guest Host Cindy Price

Chilean artist and educator Cecilia Araneda, with neuroscience outreach group NW NOGGIN, exhibiting at Street 14 Coffee Shop.

LEARN MORE: What is an Arpillera?

LEARN MORE: Chilean Embroiderers Record Memory Stitch-by-Stitch

LEARN MORE: Chilean Women’s Resistance in the Arpillera Movement

LEARN MORE: The Colorful Quilt Squares Chilean Women Used to Tell the Story of Life Under Pinochet 

LEARN MORE: La Alegría de la Ciencia

No estamos en guerra, by Cecilia Araneda (about the situation in Chile today)

FROM CECILIA: “The title of my arpillera is due to a sentence that Piñera said the second or third day of this rebelión. He said ‘We are at war against a bunch of violent people,’ so people said ‘We are not at war, we are united.’”

A few Noggin volunteers will be at Street 14 with real brains and research information on trauma, bias, depression, anxiety, PTSD, sleep deprivation and more.

LEARN MORE: Accumbens in Astoria

LEARN MORE: Noggins on the North Coast

FROM CECILIA: The experience of the Colectivo Memorarte “Arpilleras, sites and memory Valparaíso”, was born in 2016 as a collective initiative to recreate local memory around human rights violations that occurred, massively, during the civic-military dictatorship that started in Chile on September 11th, 1973. We express our work through the realization of the art of the arpilleras where we sew parts of the memory of our country with pieces of colored fabrics and threads.

Initially, the Colectivo started to work in the space of the Valparaíso Ex-prison Cultural Park, however, during 2017, we moved our operation –weekly- to the PRAIS (Integral Health Care and Repair Program), Valparaíso. From this place we have been able to strengthen our creative performance by affirming our identity as a cultural group that works to recover the memory of those sites that were used by the civic-military dictatorship to violate human rights.

As of 2018, we have projected our development around the realization of visits to memory and human rights sites, meetings and talks about memory and also exhibitions of our works in addition to continuing the creation of arpilleras, now even portraying actual events. With this work, we fulfill the purposes of: sharing what has been done, exchanging experiences of action around “popular memory”, and contributing to the imperative of developing a “pedagogy of memory and human rights” in our country. Our commitment is to go on working against oblivion, impunity and injustice in Chile. 

Founding members: María Alicia Salinas (our teacher and former political prisoner), Silvia Mazzella (former political prisoner), Alicia Olea (former political prisoner), Dana Wordes, Valeria Arancibia, Gabriela Palleras, Marisa Chávez. In the course of the years some members have joined and others, for reasons of work or place of residence, have not been able to participate. Today, our teacher, originally from Santiago, no longer travels to all sessions for health reasons. The actual nine members are: Silvia Mazzella, Alicia Olea, Dana Wordes, Valeria Arancibia, Gabriela Palleras, Nora Torres, Jacqueline van Rysseghem, Marisa Chávez and me, Cecilia Araneda.  We have participated in various human rights events, universities, hospitals, cultural centers, openings of memory sites and cultural exhibitions.

Video taken by Augustus in Valparaíso, Chile, 2019

So, we invite you to explore our recent history through these arpilleras where you could imagine the pain and despair as well as the courage and hope of men and women who believed and fought for a better world.

LEARN MORE: INDICE CATALOGO ACTUALIZADO