The deputies of National Renewal (RN), Andrés Celis, Andrés Longton and Diego Schalper officiated this Thursday to the Ministry of Cultures for financing the exhibition of the Embroiderers for Memory Collective “We jump Turnstiles to open the Alamedas”, which was presented at the Daniel de la Vega Cultural Center in the commune of Quilpué between December 7 and 15.
“We cannot accept that with funds from all Chileans, violence is being promoted and actions such as jumping the turnstiles, which ultimately harm our entire society. In the image it appears that the Ministry of Cultures and also the Municipality of Quilpué are sponsors, so it is important that they clarify the reasons for the sponsorship and how many were the amounts they allocated for the sample, “said Deputy Celis.
The official document requests information on the public resources that were available to carry out the exhibition, the project selection process and the reasons for sponsoring the activity. In addition, the parliamentarians officiated to the Municipality of the commune to know if public resources were allocated for the sample.
The collective denies financing
As a result of the office, the Embroiderers for Memory Collective responded through a public statement to the accusations of the RN deputies.
“We rule out any type of financing by the Ministry of Cultures, the municipality of Quilpué and its Cultural Corporation, as misreported by parliamentarians,” the statement said.
The exhibition “was presented at the Daniel de la Vega Cultural Center, within the framework of the commemoration of International Human Rights Day and through an invitation from an organization of users-recipients of the Program of Reparation and Comprehensive Care in Health and Human Rights, (PRAIS), which does not depend on any public body.” explains the statement.
In addition, he adds that “the exhibition, which was presented from December 7 to 15, was composed of 24 embroidered pieces that tell, through art, iconic images of the Social Explosion. The entire sample was conducted over several months after October 19, 2019 in an absolutely self-financed manner by us.”
The group emphasizes that its exhibitions have been exhibited in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, in the Salvador Allende Museum, in the cultural centers of San Antonio and La Ligua, and in different educational and cultural establishments in the region, and emphasizes that it has more than 140 pieces of embroidery “that relate different episodes of violation of human rights in our country.”
“We would expect parliamentarians, financed with resources from all Chileans, to occupy their important public role in useful functions for our society. It is not possible that through their role, they propagate their denialist discourse known to all, misinterpreting our work in an insidious way,” the group emphasizes.
The response of the Government and the municipality
On the other hand, according to Radio Bío Bío, the mayor of Quilpué, Valeria Melipillán, declined to refer to the accusation of using public resources for the exhibition.
While from the Seremi of Cultures, Arts and Heritage of Valparaíso maintained that they did not finance the exhibition of the collective.
“We, as the Regional Ministerial Secretariat of Cultures of Valparaíso and the Memory and Human Rights Unit of the institution, signed a collaboration agreement with the organization Association of Beneficiaries of Political Reparation Laws of Quilpué. This agreement did not provide details regarding this exhibition, coordinated by this group from Quilpué in conjunction with the Bordadoras de Valparaíso collective,” they told El Mostrador.
Regarding the statements of the RN deputies, they maintained that “from the Seremi of the Valparaíso Region we emphatically affirm that we are not promoters of violence in any of its forms, nor of censorship or questioning of freedom of expression of cultural groups and organizations in the country. This exhibition is part of the work carried out by a collective dedicated to preserving the historical memory of the country and the Valparaíso Region, and its initiatives are the result of its own actions as a group.”
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