Collected and preserved by Chilean – born poet, activist and scholar Marjorie Agosin, these women’s protest tapestries were created in the 1970s and 80s by Chilean women whose loved ones were murdered, missing, and tortured during the harsh regime (1973-1989) of Dictator Agusto Pinochet. These appliqué designs and narratives were crucial in telling the story of the disappeared and of the human rights abuses taking place in Chile.
Marjorie Agosin is a native of Chile who now lives in Wellesley, MA where she teaches Latin American literature at Wellesley College. Agosin has long been an advocate of human right and much of her work focuses on the human rights abuses that have taken place in her native country and throughout Latin America as well. Her poetry powerfully portrays the guilt of those who chose to look away, the suffering of the oppressed and their families and the brutality of their tormentors. Agosin’s work, both as poet and as editor, has received wide critical acclaim.
She has traveled throughout the United States and Latin America delivering lectures and reading her work. She had also made many television appearances.
Born in 1956, Marjorie Agosin moved to the United States with her family when she was 16. Her father had just taken a job in Athens, Georgia where he taught biochemistry at the university. Soon after, the military coup took place in Chile and the family, supporters of the ousted Social Democrats, decided it would be safer for them to remain in the U.S. Agosin earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Georgia and went on to earn her doctorate from the University of Indiana. She made the first of many return trips to Chile when she was 24 after reading of the Chilean arpilleristas. It was then she decided to write her own story and help fight human rights abuses.