What can we learn about social movements through street art? What role do expressions such as graffiti, murals, paste-ups, stickers, and other urban interventions play in activist struggles? These are but a few questions that Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov address in their book. The book's central focus is the massive political uprising and social mobilization known in Chile as el estallido social (“the social explosion”), which consisted of countless protests that took place between 2019 and 2020.
El estallido was the result of the collective and pent-up anger many Chileans felt after decades of a neoliberal system of extreme inequality and after centuries of colonial and neocolonial structures of power. The government of President Sebastián Piñera responded to el estallido by publicly villainizing the protesters and by deploying police forces (carabineros) and the military to suppress these mobilizations. Violent clashes between them led to severe injuries and even deaths among civilians, prompting accusations of human rights violations against the Piñera government.
Gordon-Zolov and Zolov cover this Chilean history in detail, not a small feat given how recent these events are. In fact, these happenings are part of a still unfolding history, as Chile is in the process of rewriting its constitution as a result of el estallido. In addition, the authors argue that along the way the country also experienced an estallido artístico (“arts explosion”), one that took place primarily on city walls and public spaces. These arts practices could not be divorced from the daily activist struggles taking place.
The authors take a holistic approach to the estallido artístico, covering wall art but also music, performance, and other means of creative expression. Moreover, they make a great case for the profound and organic relationship between art and activism that exists in Chile. This relationship is also made clear in the book through the reproduction of images. The authors took pains to photograph and document the various forms of street art that sprouted in Santiago between 2019 and 2020, most of which have now disappeared. Their disappearance is partly due to the ephemeral quality of Chilean street art; this art form often responds to the social issues of the moment. However, Gordon-Zolov and Zolov also tell us that the Piñera government took advantage of the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 to cover up much of this artwork. Thus, the book does the important work of documenting and archiving an arts and social movement with its 146 full-color illustrations.
The book is organized according to recurring slogans and iconographies that emerged in public spaces during el estallido. Gordon-Zolov and Zolov take deep dives into the significance and history of each of these motifs, thus revealing the ingenuity and creativity that is part of Chilean social movements. For instance, in Chapter 2 (“The Right to Live in Peace”) they highlight the significance of Victor Jara as a powerful symbol during el estallido. Jara was the famed Chilean singer-songwriter who was detained, tortured, and murdered during the early days of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. His image and song lyrics were evoked during el estallido. Gordon-Zolov and Zolov note how these were re-signified and updated to fit the specific political critiques of el estallido.
By contrast, Chapter 3 takes as its starting point the word “evade” (avoid, dodge, pass), a mantra that animated protesters and artists alike during el estallido. In Chile, the verb “evadir” (“to evade”) often refers to the act of refusing or failing to pay for public transportation. When the Santiago Metro hiked its price by 30 pesos in 2019, a large group of school kids decided to jump the subway turnstiles as a demonstration of resistance. They also made a public call for others to evade. Gordon-Zolov and Zolov argue that the word took on added significance when phrases such as “evadir = exigir” (“evading = demanding”) and “evade el sistema” (“evade the system”) were spray- painted throughout the city. So, a verb that was connected to illegal activity became a rallying cry for resistance. Organizing the book according to el estallido's political discourse and visual iconography is a very effective and clever move. The entire text reads like a very successful exercise in storytelling through visual and textual narratives.
The book is a rich text with impeccable visual and cultural analyses. It is complex and nuanced but also accessible to readers in and outside the academy. If it were translated to Spanish, I suspect it would likely enjoy a large readership in Chile. The careful attention paid to intersectional understandings of oppression exhibited by Chilean protesters further adds to this richness. In Chapter 4 (“The Revolution Will be Feminist or Will not Be!”) and Chapter 5 (“Wallmapu Libre!”), Gordon-Zolov and Zolov outlined how the economic inequality Chile has experienced in the past three decades was compounded and influenced by gender inequality, racism, and persistent coloniality.
In all its richness, this book does fall a bit short in a few areas. The book's scope is limited to street art found in the neighborhoods of Santiago Centro, Providencia, and Ñuñoa, which are middle- to upper-middle-class areas of the city. The authors do not cover the rich and exciting street art often created in poblaciones, poor and working-class neighborhoods located in Santiago's periphery. These are precisely the populations who have borne the brunt of Chile's exclusionary and oppressive policies. However, Gordon-Zolov and Zolov themselves recognize this limitation early on in their book. Moreover, I have little doubt that the disruption to public transportation caused by el estallido made poblaciones less accessible to them.
The other shortcoming I found in this book is the rather thin engagement with previous scholarship on Chilean street art and aesthetics. Although Gordon-Zolov and Zolov do cite the fine work done by Camilo Trumper with frequency, the work of other Chilean scholars such as Eduardo Castillo Espinoza, Patricio Rodríguez-Plaza, Francisca Valdebenito Acosta, and several others is not cited at all. These authors provide more productive frameworks to understand Chilean street art and activism than those of the European avant-garde that Gordon-Zolov and Zolov employ in Chapter 7 (“Poetry is in the Street”).
The strengths of this book certainly outweigh any weak points. It is a compelling and dynamic text that celebrates Chilean art and activism while also documenting a most important moment in the country's political and artistic history. This exciting book is a must read for scholars, students, and activists interested in the intersection of creativity and social justice.
