Santiago de Chile. A colorful and vindictive mural painted by award-winning Chilean singer-songwriter Mon Laferte at the iconic National Stadium, in Santiago, Chile, inaugurated the commemorative acts for the 50th anniversary of the military coup.
Prisons, guitars, volcanoes, detainees or copihues are some of the elements of this great painting that Laferte (1983) devised together with the renowned Chilean muralist Mono González (1947).
“In a place that was so sinister and that was the most important concentration camp of the dictatorship, now there is life and colors,” said González.
We recommend you read:
For the muralist, the painting (which is located in one of the main entrances of the stadium) claims “the culture of life” and “congenia” both his style and that of Laferte.
“What interested me the most was combining the work of an older generation, I am 76 years old, with that of a young woman who did not experience the coup,” she acknowledged.
Mon Laferte, who gave statements in an act after the presentation of the mural, acknowledged “being bad at speaking” and said that she “writes songs and paints so as not to explain with spoken words.”
“What moved me the most is seeing José (an ex-prisoner), who came with his grandchildren, and he was happy. How incredible that after so much pain he has a moment of happiness in the National Stadium. That’s what art does , has that magic and that power,” he added at a press conference during the presentation of the Teatro a Mil International Festival.
Located in the residential neighborhood of Nuñoa and declared a Historic Monument in 2003, the National Stadium was the largest detention center during the coup that overthrew the then socialist president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.
It is estimated that about 50,000 prisoners passed through it between September and November 1973, when the stadium was closed as a detention center so that the team could play the World Cup qualifiers in 1974.
The stadium, which also functions as a voting center, occupies a privileged place in the Chilean imagination as it was also where former President Patricio Aylwin gave his famous speech upon taking office in 1990, promising “truth” and “reparation” against the dictator Augusto Pinochet.
“This mural constitutes the first milestone of the 50 years of the fateful coup (…) and is the result of a collective process built from the memory of those who managed to survive the atrocities of the dictatorship,” said Marcelo Acevedo, coordinator of the Network of Memory Sites, that brings together the main torture centers of the dictatorship.
Acevedo also asked to “reflect” on how little progress has been made in the protection and promotion of human rights and historical memory” and “Disarm the pacts of silence and let truth and justice emerge”.
We recommend you read:
Chile arrives at the commemoration of the military coup with Gabriel Boric heading the most leftist government since Allende, which is preparing a series of commemorative events until September.
#Mural #Mon #Laferte #inaugurates #events #50th #anniversary #coup #Chile