Art, memory and activism converge in what will be the inauguration of the First Festival of performing arts and sexual dissidence in Chile “DESVIACIONES”: the inauguration of “365, an evil that lasted a hundred years (and more)”, an exhibition that reviews 25 milestones that have mobilized dissident sex-gender communities at the local level at the Matucana 100 Cultural Center. The presentation is this Wednesday, June 26 at 7:00 p.m. in Matucana 100, and the exhibition will be available until July 13 at the cultural center.
The exhibition covers slogans recorded graphically in media publications, photographs, testimonies, activations, manifestos, artistic expressions that are part of dissident memories, among them, the crazy women of ’73, the lesbofeminist collective Ayuquelén in the 80s, the first mobilizations emerged in democracy due to HIV/AIDS, the demands of the Lambda Chile collective or the Luís Gauthier workers union during the 90s, crucial to exert social pressure in search of the decriminalization of homosexuality.
They are also followed by the emergence of the CUDS, the first student group of sexual dissidence, and more currently, the formation and manifesto of the Guerrilla Marika and the Yeguada Latinoamericana, along with the work of artists such as “Isonauta” and “Migra”, among many others. .
The installation that presents this exhibition arises from a joint curatorship between Teatro Sur and Mapa LGBTI+. From this last platform, Tobal Opazo points out that we are currently in “a favorable moment for the memories of sexual dissidence in Chile to have their space, since we owe it to our survivors who started these struggles and of course also for all those lives that “They have been taken away.”
“It is urgent,” he adds, “that we be able as a society to recognize that heterosexuality is not the only possible path, that the demands that are part of this exhibition have existed for much longer than recorded, and that they come to account for of the need to open avenues of reparation for any group in society that has been punished by the State due to their sexuality, identity or even ancestry and that today represent a serious violation of fundamental and human rights.
This event on Wednesday 26th, in addition to presenting the festival and its programming, is an invitation “to gather around our memories, to learn how this dissident circuit is activated around the performing arts, and to embrace our history and explore these cultural landscapes together,” Opazo adds.
The inauguration will be hosted by the actresses Lola Quezada and Mala Drag, in addition to various artistic activations, such as the overture by Marcela Dimonti, a performance by the Biblioteca Cuir collective with its “Marika high school not to forget”; to close with Rosimar’s live presentation.
Play
Another event of the Festival that will take place at the Matucana 100 Cultural Center will be the play “The fire we carry inside”, by Compañía Teatro A La Deriva de Valparaíso. The work is presented on Wednesday, July 10 and Thursday, July 11 at 8:15 p.m. in the Patricio Bunster Room.
The work is the staging of a theatrical film written and directed by Sebastián Ayala, released from Valparaíso in virtual format in 2022, five months after the sentencing of the murderer of the young lesbian Nicole Saavedra, who was kidnapped, raped and tortured in Limache. The work – which had the consent of Nicole Saavedra’s family and the “Justice for Nicole” Movement – is a contribution to the visibility of a case that shook sexual dissident activism in Chile, and that today reminds us of one of the crimes of cruelest hatred in our recent history.
Also in M100, the DESVIADA Fair organized by Cooperativa La Causa will take place, a traveling meeting with several previous versions, which has an exhibition nature that supports the economy of local dissident artists and talents, presenting itself in the orchard sector on Friday. 12 and the esplanade on Saturday, July 13.
The Deviations Festival will take place in various communes of the capital -La Pintana, Lo Prado, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Maipú, Cerro Navia and Santiago- between June 26 and July 13. As a way to commemorate the 25 years of the decriminalization of homosexuality and the various drifts in social struggles regarding gender, justice and sexual freedoms, Asociación Cultural Teatro Sur continues its work of critical review of local queer history, that gave meaning to Yeguas Sueltas.
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