Interview by Alexia Bréard-Anderson
Soledad Fátima Muñoz:
ON COPPER, MEMORY WORK, AND WEAVING RESISTANCE
All images by Ananna Rafa
Cold sunlight gleams through the clouds as I shuffle my way across the quiet sidewalks of East End Toronto, pausing to look up from my phone notes and absorb the final rays of Vitamin D before that early-afternoon winter sunset. I turn a corner at the next house and walk right up to the side door of a garage, which I can see is lit from the roll-up window above.
The door swings open and Soledad Fátima Muñoz welcomes me into her studio with a warm embrace and enthusiastic chatter, moving some folders and jars of natural pigment off of an industrial steel stool for me to place my coat. Last time we saw each other was in 2018 at HAVN, an artist-run space in Hamilton, Ontario where Soledad was exhibiting a piece and performing as part of the opening reception of Tie It Off & Count Again curated by Rowan Lynch, a fellow thesis student of mine. I have the distinct memory of Soledad and I sharing a cigarette outside the entrance and swapping stories of love and grievance that come with being eternally in between worlds, both of us Canadian-born but hailing from the South: myself from Buenos Aires, Argentina and Soledad from Rancagua, Chile..
Fast forward five years later, and we find ourselves at the artist’s cozy garage studio where a substantial wooden loom anchors the space, accompanied by shelves and filing cabinets filled to the brim with fabric samples, arpilleras and little balls of copper wire. Spools of thread and wool of all colours and sizes hang from the wall, as Soledad takes out tapestry after tapestry, walking me through years of artmaking, textile gifts and collaborations. We chat for nearly three hours, about everything from twill fabric weaving to the natural healing properties of pine and agüita de canelo to our frustration with self-proclaimed feminists in the city’s art scene.
Through a fierce advocacy of human rights and an intricate constellation of sound and textile, Soledad’s practice embodies the ever-changing spirit of craft, redefining its boundaries as a static art form to reveal a vigorous force that truly strengthens communities, breathes life into the archive and envisions a collective path towards justice.
AB: Your practice is deeply rooted in immersive sound and sonic experimentation. How has music informed your creative journey?
SM: Well, music has always been there, I started playing piano when I was five years old. The first time I saw a synthesizer was at ARCIS, a very cool university in Santiago that no longer exists. I studied film there, and although my life at that moment was music, I remember that whenever anyone asked me “Hey, why don't you study music?” I always responded that I didn't want to stress myself out with something that de-stresses me.
A couple years later, when I was studying at Emily Carr in Vancouver, I started learning how to use SuperCollider and building handmade instruments. And since I had to ‘put it into words’ because that's what art school demands of you, I said I wanted to deconstruct the material through sound. And so it began! My first work was placing a giant metal cone made by my friend Stefan Sollenius with a controller next to a train, so whenever it passed, we could amplify the vibrations and modulate them, like we would on a synthesizer.
AB: In 2014, you founded audio project/record label Genero, focusing on the distribution and greater representation of women and non-binary artists in the sound realm. How did this emerge?
SM: Honestly, I went to see people play in New York and I realized that in Vancouver there were women who played much better! (laughs) And I couldn’t believe almost none of them were releasing records. Most of the records being released were coming out of small groups of men. The power imbalance onstage was very felt, with the elevated male DJ and the woman dancing below. It’s like we were inanimate objects. And it’s wild , because even after having played in bands since I was thirteen in Chile, I had never played with a woman! When I jammed with men, I always felt like I had to prove that I deserved to be there. So I started releasing records, but more importantly I started inviting people to jam.
AB: I can only imagine how these jam sessions inspired you to establish intersectional music and electronic art symposium CURRENT! What was it like to create a space to share resources, knowledge and music in light of such a male-centered and profit-driven scene?
SM: When we founded CURRENT with my best friend and colleague Nancy Lee, we realized that all women of color had experienced some form of gender-based violence in the music industry. All of them! So we hosted a panel discussion on how we could better support women/non-binary artists in our community and create more inclusive spaces and lineups. And this was way before the #MeToo movement, we basically had to re-explain feminism to folks. The second year we got grant funding and hosted a massive symposium. It wasn't until the third year, when we realized that we were still some of the only ones doing this work, that we organized a mentorship program. We wanted to teach artists how to apply for government funding. And because we value civic education, that's what we did. We were the one of the first to pay the mentees and invited them for a week to learn how to write grants, artist statements and everything. They don't teach you these things in nightlife, it’s not like in art schools.
AB: They don’t teach you on purpose.
SM: Totally. And you can really see the impact these types of initiatives have. All those people who were part of that have their own projects now and are giants. For me, this is what it’s about. Art is the excuse, it’s what draws people in and brings them together.
AB: How did you journey from this environment of electronic music towards textiles?
SM: I love textiles. They are texts, truly. More than books, because you can turn them around, you can learn to recognize traditions, edges, lineages. When I sat at a loom for the first time, I knew that was my space for life.
Soledad shows me a little cloth book, completely handwoven with intricately crocheted borders and different embroidery styles on each ‘page’.
This is the most important book of my life. Bélgica Castro Fuentes¹ made this for me after we recorded La Parte de Atrás de la Arpillera so that I could teach. Bélgica is my alpillerista mom (laughs). I find it funny to see this push to “reclaim the arpilleras”, but not the arpilleristas! They are so incredibly intelligent! I’m not an arpillerista, so when someone asks me to teach a workshop, I prefer to invite Bélgica. Even if we have to host it online, voices like hers are the ones we have to raise. Because as she says, it’s not about teaching “technique”, but more so about truly understanding the arpillera.
Unfortunately, the visual vocabulary of Latin America is overly influenced by Europe and much of our textiles are in response to state violence. It was in my search for sonic materiality that I arrived at copper and its deep history of extractivism. Chile has literally had a dictatorship because of copper! It is the veins of our land, but at the same time it’s brought so much suffering.
AB: I remember the first work of yours I ever saw, FUSE (at Tie It Off & Count Again at HAVN curated by Rowan Lynch), was a sonic piece woven in copper. How has it felt to continue collaborating with this material for Detenidxs Desaparecidxs and other works?
SM: Copper has always been earth and body. My town Rancagua is a mining town so I grew up with copper. And it's so Chilean, you know? I can't even begin to describe what happens when I see someone seeing their relative woven in copper. They've looked at those photos a billion times in 50 years. But as soon as they see it in copper, it’s an emotion that is really difficult to put into words. It’s very moving to witness that moment of deep, emotional reaction to your art. A very special bond is created. These people and I, we adore each other! And it bothers me when people stay fixated solely on the visual, but I know that’s the honey, that’s what lures them in.. Art is what is done with the object. Not the object itself.
AB: How does it feel to have Memoria Entretejida (Woven Memory) installed at Londres 38, a memory site in Santiago?
SM: I truly thought this project wasn’t going to come until I was 60 years old. And it's wild, because when I first envisioned it, I knew I wanted to install it literally where it is now.
Authors Note: London 38 is a former clandestine centre for political detention, torture and extermination operated by the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) between 1973 and 1974. The house, located on London Street, in the center of Santiago, was built in 1925. It had residential use until 1970, when it was purchased and used as the Socialist Party headquarters until 1973. Following its repressive use – and as a concealment strategy – in 1978 the house was transferred to the O'higginian Institute (military studies organization) and its numbering changed to London 40. Since then, the space has been insistently marked as a place of imprisonment, torture and disappearance by relatives of executed and missing persons, and detention center survivors.
SM: This is what we investigate. The detenidos desaparecidos were fighting for the nationalization and protection of natural resources and then the dictatorship came and killed them and tried to kill their ideologies. Everything disappears along with this. Natural resources, houses, people…
Through Memoria Entretejida we aim to share the history of systemic violations towards human rights that occurred during the dictatorship and contextualize them in light of the current, ongoing extractivism.
I mean, if I could do this with art, why would I make a painting?!
AB: How do the experiences with your art shift when it’s exhibited in Canada?
SM: When super subversive practices like this are carried out within Canadian institutions, they love to say, “Look how tolerant we are, look at what we show, look how critical we are of ourselves.” We give way more to them than they give to us. We are giving them cultural capital. This is why I don't like showing in institutions . The few times I’ve shown at institutions have been horrible and re-traumatizing. But at the same time, I understand there is a larger purpose. Héctor, who is from the Centro de Memoria de la Providencia in Antofagasta, reminds me that they have never been able to be in places like the University of Chicago, or the University of Toronto. So it’s my responsibility to go and show this truth in these spaces.
AB: What is your reaction to your art being defined as “political art”?
SM: It bothers me when people call it “political art” or “relational art.” For me it is art and that's it. If you are changing the culture, it is art. If you are painting a random triangle to sell, it is a consumer object. It is so important to make a difference between the two. I don't have the privilege of making a triangle. Because even if I paint a triangle, they are going to interpret it in the way that suits them. Even if I paint butterflies, they are going to capitalize on it. Who has the privilege of neutrality? All art is personal!
AB: I resonate with this so much. Especially when you’re crafting spaces and tools through your art that go beyond just your life, or even your relationships. It becomes something for everyone.
SM: Exactly. It is the history of Chile. And it’s so ironic because when I come as an artist from Canada with Canadian funds doing this work, it’s not a good look for Chilean authorities to resist or try to stop us. (laughs)
AB: Something I love about your practice is how vehemently you play with power dynamics: reversing sides, regenerating resources and relocating funds. It’s a form of alchemy, almost.
SM: Completely. A huge majority of the mining companies in Chile are Canadian!² They gotta give something back, you know? My goal from here on out is to continue using funds from here to sustain these projects. And trust me, I understand that when the Canadian government steals all this cultural capital from me, they will steal it for life. It's raw as hell. But I take out all that anger, take the bad and transform it. It is so important to remember, to hacer memoria, instead of rejecting our past because it gives us pain.
There are many who believe that we don’t do research, that there are no investigations and that we are all “down with the monarchy” (laughs), but there is so much research and everything is done in community. The relationships that emerge from these projects have been crucial, not only between the team and the family members of the disappeared detainees, but with the community at large. It is important for us to bring people into the "sitios de memoria" and for the public to meet the family members and humanize their pain, helping them realize this could happen to anybody. The human rights groups where my weavings are donated put the tapestries on the street, in the public plaza. That's the whole point. In a gallery, the tapestries become untouchable. Please put them on the street!
AB: What a tremendous challenge, to work within such urgency, while simultaneously recognizing that it is a lifelong path, rooted in every single aspect of one’s experience.
SM: The work is very, very hard. On all fronts. I think that after this, I kind of deserve to weave a butterfly or something else instead, no? (laughs) But for this exact reason, I hold my loved ones close and am actively trying to create a super cozy atmosphere, with my husband, my dog and home studio.
I’ve always been a being of exile, eternally between the two countries. And these two geographies in which I live have a MAJOR colonial and imperialist relationship. The art I create is not just about something that happened fifty years ago in 1973, you know? It is as current as ever, because when I return to my region, the water is not there because the rivers have literally dried up. And it's the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan that is investing in this!³ So when it comes to this... I ask myself, what do people in Canada need to hear? A facho⁴ will never listen to me. But - I can show a teacher everything that we’re doing. I can share our projects, our research and studies and maybe they will understand. And maybe, this can push them to vote against investing in Chile’s water and release the water back to us.
I love that the people we experience this with call us memory workers. I hope neoliberalism releases art, because we would make incredible shit. It’s not about “socially engaged practice”.
It's art. This is true art. You know?
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
¹Bélgica Castro Fuentes is an arpillerista that participated in the first arpillera workshop of the Comité Pro Paz (Pro-Peace Committee) in Chile.
²As of 2019, Chile trailed only behind the United States as the country with the highest number of Canadian mining assets, represented by 53 Canadian companies exploring and exploiting Chile’s mineral wealth.
³In 2007, the OTPP began investing through its Chilean Unit, Inversiones OTPPB Chile II Limitada, in Chilean water and sanitation services. In 2011, it increased its shares and is now the majority shareholder in three major Chilean utilities making it the largest investor in Chilean private water and sanitation services. Source: Blue Planet Project
⁴Facho: Informal slang word for ‘fascist’
