Exhibit
Exhibit Opening and Programs on the "Disappeared" of Chile
Co-sponsored by Amnesty International USA
September 10 - October 31
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center
First floor
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY
"FLOWERS IN THE DESERT"
Women Searching for the 'Disappeared,' Calama, Chile
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAULA ALLEN
OPENING NIGHT: On the eve of the anniversary of the coup against the democratically-elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2004: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
PROGRAM AT 7:30 P.M.
Guest Speakers: Paula Allen
James Fernandez, Director, The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center
Joyce Horman, human rights activist and widow of Charles Horman
Alex Arriaga, Amnesty International USA
Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz, Permanent Representative of Chile to the UN
THE EXHIBIT: Photographs of the Women of Calama, Chile by internationally-acclaimed documentary photographer Paula Allen. The exhibit tells the story of the women's search for their relatives who were executed and "disappeared" in the Atacama Desert during Pinochet's Caravan of Death in October, 1973. A series of programs (speakers and films) will accompany the exhibit.
EXHIBIT DATES: September 10 - October 31
VIEWING HOURS: MONDAY - FRIDAY, 8:00 A.M. - 10:00 P.M.
The opening date of the exhibit commemorates the eve of the 31st anniversary of the coup against the Allende government on September 11, 1793 and the International "Day of the Disappeared" observed annually by Amnesty International on August 30. This year's International "Day of the Disappeared" focuses on the more than 3,000 "disappeared" of Chile. A twin exhibit of Paula Allen's photographs of the Women of Calama will open on August 31 in Santiago, Chile.
THE WOMEN OF CALAMA, CHILE:
The story of the Women of Calama begins in the north of Chile in the center of the Atacama Desert. One month after the coup against the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende, five soldiers boarded a military helicopter and began a journey which came to be known as the Caravan of Death. The soldiers traveled to four northern cities where they murdered a total of 72 people suspected of "subversive" activities. On October 19, 1973, the Caravan made its final stop in the town of Calama where 26 men were executed, their bodies buried in a secret desert grave. For the next 17 years, the women of Calama and their relatives searched the desert, digging with their shovels, hoping to find the bodies of their loved ones. In 1990, they finally found a mass grave containing fragments of bones, possibly the remains of their men. It was not until five years later that the first 13 bodies were identified and then two more were identified in 2003. As of today, the women continue to look for their men who are still "missing." They also persevere in their demands to know the full truth - a truth they have been denied for the past 31 years - and to bring to justice those responsible for detaining, torturing, and "disappearing" their men. This exhibit tells their story.
In 1999, Ms. Allen published the book of photographs Flores en el Desierto/Flowers in the Desert about the Women of Calama and their search for truth and justice.
"In the hallucinatory photographs of Paula Allen, the lunar landscape of northern Chile's desert stretches toward the horizon like a sea of grief. That arid land is the perfect metaphor for the unremitting pain of the women of the disappeared. Their suffering is that vast, that terrible. The tiny figures of the women with shovels in their hands, scouring that plain baked by a brutal climate, are in these photographs converted into eternal symbols." Isabel AllendePROGRAMS: SPEAKERS AND FILMS: 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
All programs in the auditorium - first floor of The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center.
Tuesday, 9/14: ODETTE MAGNET, Chilean journalist; MARJORIE AGOSlN, Professor of Spanish, Wellesley College, poet, author of Threads of Hope, Threads of Love; TEMMA KAPLAN, Professor of History, Rutgers University, author of Taking Back the Streets. Documentary film "Threads of Hope" (1992, Canada) directed by Andrew Johnson relates how the sisters, mothers, and wives of the "disappeared" defied the Pinochet dictatorship by creating arpilleras, patchwork tapestries depicting scenes of daily life, which were smuggled out of Chile.
Tuesday, 9/21: PETER KORNBLUH, Director of the National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project, author of The Pinochet File. Documentary film "The Pinochet Case" (2003, Chile) directed by Patricio Guzmán reconstructs the legal case prepared against Pinochet by Judge Baltasar Garzón and his attempt to extradite Pinochet from London to Spain in 1998.
Tuesday, 9/28: JOHN DINGES, Professor, School of Journalism, Columbia University, author of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents. Documentary film "Condor: The First War on Terror" (2003, France/Great Britain) directed by Rodrigo Vazquez and based in part on The Condor Years examines the secret war (torture, kidnappings, and assassinations) initiated against political dissidents by Pinochet and conducted for more than a decade in alliance with five Latin American dictatorships and the CIA.
Tuesday, 10/12: MARCIA ESPARZA, Ph.D., Director, Historical Memory Project, John Jay College of Criminology. Documentary film "The National Stadium" (2001, Chile) directed by Carmen Luz Parot provides the first vivid portrait of the detention of 12,000 political prisoners in Santiago's National Stadium in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 1973.
Tuesday, 10/26: JOYCE HORMAN, human rights activist and widow of Charles Horman. Feature film "Missing" (1982, U.S.) directed by Costa-Gravas with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek relates the story of American journalist Charles Horman who was murdered in September, 1973 for obtaining knowledge about the U.S. role in the coup against the Allende government.
Co-sponsored by Amnesty International USA
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of NYU
The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies of NYU