Just to warn you before you start reading this post and expecting too much… we didn’t do anything today. We literally just walked around the city enjoying the sights. As you may expect from our other posts in Chile, this means that we saw and photographed a lot of public art. We will show some of it here, but it is probably better suited to a photo dump on Instagram at some point. We will have very little to say, but will add context as needed/able.
As you can imagine, these posts mean that this neighbourhood supports a Chilean team, and you would be right. The red and blue is for the University of Chile, a team based in Santiago. It is not the only team in Santiago, so there are probably neighbourhoods in the capital that are painted in different colours. If we see any, we will let you know.
We start walking in Recoleta (a neighbourhood in Santiago) and slowly make our way towards Santiago Centro. There are honestly not many blocks that don’t have huge murals on them. Some are “just” art while many, maaaaany more are political in nature. If you have been following our trip through Chile so far you will have seen us repeat over and over that the walls are really used to promote certain political messages. See if you can make out any below before we try explaining them ourselves.
First up (left) we have a mural for the Mapuche. On the right there is a child playing a traditional instrument and on the left is the profile of a Lonko (traditional leader). If you know a bit about Chilean politics (or look at many walls) you will start to see his picture a lot. He is a Mapuche leader that was imprisoned in 2019, and many people thought at the time it was because of his work to stop a hydroelectric plant from being built on a river in southern Chile. For his work he would receive the “environmental Nobel Prize,” which he could not accept in person as he was in jail at the time. He has since been released, but his image can still be seen around Chile. The second (right) mural seems to have two meanings that you could say are intertwined, the first is against drug use but this is tied with the second that it is a businessman giving the drugs out to become rich while the world around him is destroyed.
The third (left) mural makes us think of Luisa Toledo, the mother of the Toledo Brothers. She was a human rights activist who died in 2021, but she became well known because her sons, the Toledo Brothers, were killed during the military dictatorship. This would become important in Chile because the day that they were killed would become known as the Day of the Young Fighter and many people commemorate this day yearly in Chile. She never stopped advocating for human rights and, more recently, for those who were arrested during the Estallido Social (Social Explosion) which is why you can see “Libertad a l*s pres*s” in the mural which translates to “Freedom to the prisoners” with the asterisks used to denote that both men and women were arrested. The fourth (right) mural shows a woman that is only asking for “empathy and social dignity” with a newspaper saying “brave youth” next to her. She also has a saint of a dog next to her, which is in reference to Negro Matapacos. This dog joined in with the student protests in 2011 and he would often be seen chasing the police when they would try to come towards the students. For this reason the dog has become a protest symbol within Chile, especially during the Estallido Social.
The fifth (left) mural we have no idea what it would mean. It was just pretty, ha. The sixth (right) and final “mural” is actually a small square that is made up of mosaics for the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He has quite a crazy life story. He is considered one of the best Spanish-language poets of the 1900s, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, he served in various diplomatic roles, he belonged to the communist party of Chile, he was an advisor to Salvador Allende, and died of cancer on the 23rd of September 1973. However, Neruda suspected that the doctor treating him was injecting him with poison as he suspected that Pinochet (the Chilean dictator) wanted him dead. He would die in his home just hours after leaving the hospital. In 2015 the Chilean government said that it was “clearly possible and highly likely” that he was killed based on government documents. However, his legacy is not all good and you may be able to see that his name has been crossed out in the above square. That is because many people say that he raped one of his maids in what is now Sri Lanka. This claim is based off of his own memoirs where he describes the “encounter” with this maid.
We continue walking and cross into Santiago Centro, also known as “actual Santiago”. To do that we cross the Mapocho River. You can see below that it is a river that has cemented walls to try to contain it as it goes from the Andes mountains, through Santiago, and eventually enters the Maipo River. But, because of its cement embankments it makes it another perfect surface for murals.
It’s hard to tell from this distance, but those memorialized along the banks of the Mapocho River are mainly Mapuche activists that have been imprisoned and/or killed by the Chilean police.
Just a bit further on from the Mapocho River we arrive to Parque Forrestal. This is a nice little park that you can walk through. It is a welcome green space in what is mostly a concrete jungle in Santiago. There are lots of benches, trees, and statues for you to enjoy.
After this we just went into a place to get a bit of a snack and then decided to continue walking, this time making our way back towards our accommodation as it is already 8:30 pm. Since we continue walking, we continue finding public art to show you.
And then it really starts to get late, so its time to catch the bus. Just before we take a look at a few more art pieces where we have a mosaic of Gabriela Mistral (Nobel laureate in literature, we already explained a bit about her on our travel day through Santiago), a statue without any information (but we think it looks like something from Rapa Nui), and finally a mosaic representing Valparaiso (obviously we needed this picture since we were just in Valparaiso).
But that is enough. We make our way towards the bus stop and get ready to go back to get some much needed rest. We leave you with our last picture of public art, a mural of “Dignity,” the demand of many Chileans during the Estallido Social (Social Explosion).
Goodnight from Santiago!