Indignity and resistance in the foothills of the Andes | María Verónica San Martín

This Artist book is a research project based  on one of the most symbolic and emblematic torture centers during the dictatorship in Chile called Villa Grimaldi. Through testimonies of survivors, visual archives, conversations with family members of the Disappeared, and the support of Villa Grimaldi’s board.

The book has two written sections, and one illustrated. The written part comprehends an introduction of Villa Grimaldi; the list of the victims that were murdered at the center; names of DINA collaborators; testimony of victim, Gladys Diaz; and several quotations of other survivors taken from the center’s archives. The technique used is mono prints etching and screenprint, and the shape of the book resembles a circular accordion. On one side of the book—the front side— several illustrations represent prisoners while tortured by DINA agents, showing also the solidarity between the victims.  On the other side—the back—a long print of the Andes Cordillera, which surrounded the Villa, is depicted with glass beads.

In an effort to show what happened both inside and outside the center, the structure of the book unfolds and converts into an illusion of the inside, while in the outside the figure of the Andes reflects how life continued no matter what occurred inside the wall. In the inside of the circular shape, some tortures techniques are depicted, such as the following: Road of Death; corvi houses; railroad tracks; blindfolded way; and forced labors.