Arpilleras

Arpilleras are a hand-sewn fabric art form created by Chilean women during the Pinochet regime as political protest to the horrors of "The Disappeareds" - the many thousands of citizens rounded up by government forces, then tortured and killed. The concept of arpilleras as a story-telling device spread to Peru, where village women, fleeing the "Shining Path" rebels to the relative safety of the cities, began to depict their lives in this colorful manner. Arpilleras are truly a Latin American women's art form and a female means of expression that nowadays depict daily life in an often humorous fashion.