Arpilleras: Talk and Workshop
Join curator and art historian Isabel Rojas-Williams and artist educator Gabriela Martínez to learn about the Arpillera movement where communities of women produced and globally circulated hand-embroidered textiles depicting scenes of Chilean oppression and hardship under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The presentation will be followed by a workshop with LA-based arpilleristas, including Rojas-Williams, who are former members of the international activist organization Movimiento por la Emancipación de las Mujeres de Chile/Movement for the Emancipation of Chilean Woman (MEMCH).
Examples of historic arpilleras from the family collection of artist Francisco Letelier will be on view during the program.
Capacity for the workshop portion of this free program is limited and RSVP is required for participation.
Isabel Rojas-Williams is an art historian and curator. From 2011-2016, she served as the Executive Director of the Mural Conservancy Los Angeles. Rojas-Williams is a native of Chile and a resident of Los Angeles since 1973 when she became an immediate and passionate fan of the city’s mural movement. Her mural research and scholarship around artist David Alfaro Siqueiros led to a Mayoral Advisory Committee role for the Siqueiros Mural and Interpretive Center (2012) and the exhibition Siqueiros: A Muralist in Exile at the Museum of Latin American Art (2011). Her activism and mural advocacy work helped lift the 2002 mural moratorium in Los Angeles and create a new mural ordinance signed by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2013.
Gabriela Martínez is an artist printmaker and museum educator who has been involved in various aspects of art education and interpretation for over 20 years. She holds a BA in Painting and an MFA in Printmaking and led the Education Department at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) from 2011 – 2021. At MOLAA, she directed the curatorial programming of the museum’s Port to Learning, a gallery space dedicated to the professional development of artists and museum professionals of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. In 2019 she curated the exhibition Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile, working in collaboration with MEMCH-LA (Movement for the Emancipation of the Chilean Woman-Los Angeles), to organize supporting public programs and a virtual exhibition. Her studio art background, in addition to coursework in gender and ethnic studies, supports her interest in facilitating meaningful connections to art; lived experiences; and o …
In addition to Isabel Rojas-Williams, the following LA-based Arpilleristas will be part of the program and workshop:
Ana María Cobos & Ana Lya Sater came to California from Chile as immigrants in the mid 1960s. Both have masters degrees in librarianship and Latin American Studies from UCLA. They are both retired, having worked at UCLA, Stanford and LA City College and Saddleback College. Ana María and Ana Lya have presented and published studies about the Chilean exile experience and they have collaborated with the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile. In 2019-2020 they were active participants in an extensive exhibition of arpilleras at MOLAA in Long Beach.
Juani Fúnez-González was born and raised in Chile. Three years after Pinochet’s coup d’état, in 1976, she and her husband, who had been imprisoned since September 1973, became political exiles in California. Juani continued her professional career, obtained Masters degrees in History and Sociology/Ethnic Studies and eventually completed a Ph.D. in Social Sciences. She was a part-time instructor at the University of California, Irvine and held a full-time position at Orange Coast College teaching U.S. History and Ethnic Studies. She retired in 2022. With a group of Chilean friends, she made her first arpillera in 2019 that was part of a large exhibit of arpilleras at MOLAA in Long Beach. Juani’s books, Agapi, the Fence of Hope (2024) and Surviving the Dictatorship in Chile, 1973-1976 (2025), speak of her experience of living through the clutches of the Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Mary Gamboa was born in Santiago, Chile. Her father was a textile technician and union leader and her mother a housewife, an atheist, and feminist ahead of her time. In September 1973, she was in the last year of high school. After the military coup on September 11, her school was never the same. Teachers and students went missing and never returned. As the days went by, we learned that some were detained, others were disappeared or murdered. Twenty-five years ago, she came to California with her husband and sons, knowing how difficult it would be to give her children a university education.
Betsabé Mazzolotti was born in Coquimbo, a town in the central-north region of Chile. She received her teaching degree and taught in primary school children for 12 years until the civil-military coup of 1973 when she lost her job. In 1975, her family (husband and two small children) were issued a refugee visa to travel to the United States, where they begun their exile. In 1987, she obtained a TEFL License from UCLA, which allowed her to teach English when she returned to Chile. She became Academic Director of the Chilean-North American Institute, a binational center in La Serena. Her work with arpilleras began soon after arriving in the US, collecting them and supporting the work of the first Chilean arpilleristas protected by the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Catholic Church. Betsabé was MEMCH Los Angeles’ president (Movement for the Emancipation of the Chilean Women) for almost two decades. In 2019, as member of MEMCH, she was part of the exhibition Arte Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile at MOLAA in Long Beach. As part of this project, she made her first arpillera that depicted a memory when her children first attended school in the USA.
Nancy Rivera was born in Chuquicamata, in northern Chile, she’s the daughter of a mining family.In 1973, she was completing her Public Accounting/Auditor degree at the Universidad Católica del Norte in Antofagasta. The military coup of September 11, 1973 changed her life and that of her husband. He became a political prisoner, and through the efforts of various international organizations, his status was changed and he was allowed to go into exile. They came to California in 1976. In 1977, she became a bank a teller and in 1981 joined UCLA’s Payroll office. Within a few years she became a Fiscal Supervisor with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. She retired after 25 years. With a group of Chilean friends, she made her first arpillera in 2019 that was part of a large exhibit of arpilleras at MOLAA in Long Beach.
