VOLUSPA JARPA

(Santiago, 1971)

Guided by an interest in narrative methods such as psychoanalysis and the imagery resulting from bureaucratic documents of governments and institutions, Voluspa Jarpa creates paintings and installations that examine the way in which history is stored in collective and personal memory. In The Garden of Earthly Delights (1995), Jarpa explores the representation of traumatic episodes in public space. The center of the painting exposes an image of the “Altar of the Homeland,” a monument erected by Augusto Pinochet in 1975 to pay tribute to the “liberator” Bernardo O’Higgins, the leader of the so-called Disaster of Rancagua in 1814—a battle that ultimately led to the slaughter of civilians. Next to it is the “Eternal Flame of Freedom,” a ceremonial fire lit by the dictator on September 11, 1975, celebrating the second anniversary of his violent coup d’état. In the bottom-left corner, an open book features depictions of “arches of hysteria”: according to Freud, these were experienced by women as a result of traumatic events. By juxtaposing these images, Jarpa suggests that there are many ways in which hysteria is manifested and trauma is denied—the most crucial of which are monuments, emblems, and books.