Red Lipstick, Purple Bandanas, and Green Flags: The Feminist Transformation of ‘Difficult Monuments’ during the Recent Chilean Social Upheaval

Between October 2019 and March 2020, Chilean cities witnessed a massive social upheaval, only comparable in size and impact, to the great protests against the military dictatorship (1973-1990). Known in Chile as “estallido social” these six months of unrest radically changed the center of Santiago, the Chilean capital. Two interconnected forces occupied the public space of Santiago: a student movement that took over streets and subway stations, and a massive feminist march that congregated over a million people to protest violence against women, and demand gender equality.

Although ephemeral, these protests left permanent marks in the city: from graffiti, destruction, and occupation, to the reappropriation of existing monuments. Only 4,7% of Santiago’s monuments represent real women, a grim statistic that is echoed around the world. Yet in the heat of the upheaval, protesters and women’s groups took the problem of female representation into their own hands. Guided by an intersectional lens, this paper analyzes three monuments of ‘difficult heritage’ in Santiago to understand how they were transformed physically and symbolically into sites of feminist solidarity. The cases are: a feminized colonial monument; a traditional equestrian bronze covered in purple paint; and the destruction of a monument dedicated to female victims of the military dictatorship. The stakes are high, together these monuments speak about European colonization, the nation-state, ongoing conflict with indigenous populations, past and present violence against women, as well as the oversight of feminine historical agency. Each case represents a typology of monument-appropriation, and its analysis will help to unravel distinct tactics and agents of solidarity. Simultaneously, a visual and spatial reading of these monuments as a series will create a counter-archive of possibilities for female representation in public space. This is particularly important considering that city officials are currently erasing these appropriations, in an attempt to ‘clean’ Santiago.