Women Affected by Dams: Embroidering Our Rights Coletivo Nacional de Mulheres do Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB)

Women Affected by Dams: Embroidering Our Rights brings together 34 arpilleras produced by the Coletivo Nacional de Mulheres do Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB). The pieces were made collectively by women from all over Brazil, in embroidery circles organized by the collective, as an expression of their experiences and struggles in the face of the social and environmental impacts caused by the construction, operation and collapse of dams.

The arpilleras, textile pieces that have become a symbol of memory and the struggle for human rights, are made of scraps of fabric embroidered on jute. The technique originated in Chile in the 1960s and became a cultural and political expression of female protagonism during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Created mainly by women – many of them mothers, wives, and relatives of political prisoners and the disappeared – these works depict scenes from everyday life, repression, and the struggle for rights. The Coletivo Nacional de Mulheres do Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB) began using this technique in 2013 to address issues such as domestic violence, the breakdown of ties between land and community, violence against children and adolescents, lack of access to drinking water and electricity, and the impact of dams and river pollution on fishing and family livelihoods, among other violations of human and environmental rights.