A group project by Javier Viñuela, Sharvani Rathna Chittem, Janis Appleton, Stephen Clay, and Christian Varela • Portrait Kites: fabric screenprints, created for Broadview ICE detention center memorial • Photos of Creating Installation •
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Javier Viñuela • @_javiervinuela •
5 Questions:
My parents were the first in our family to migrate to the United States from Santiago, Chile, in 1990 in search of social mobility that had become precarious under Augusto Pinochet’s U.S.-backed military regime. This reasoning did not become clear to me until I reached adulthood; only recently have I begun to confront the truths of my family’s history. Through this process, the concept of post-memory (the intergenerational transmission of trauma and history) has become a critical framework for understanding the wounds carried through stories, images, and inherited behaviors. My practice aims to understand the complex and contradictory legacy that shapes who I am today.
This has led me to personal research focused on radical activism in Chile over the past 30 years, particularly resistance to neoliberal economic policies implemented by the “Chicago Boys.” I found myself in an ontological contradiction, attending school in the same city where these economists were trained; individuals whose policies ultimately contributed to my parents’ migration to the United States.
My involvement in activism began with Parkland at the age of 13. Subconsciously, this was my way of carrying forward a legacy of student-led resistance. I’ve come to understand that my lived experiences within activism and subcultural spaces reflect the idea of the “imperial boomerang” (or colonial boomerang): the theory that governments which develop repressive techniques to enforce imperialism or control colonized territories will eventually deploy those same techniques domestically against their own citizens.
Although I moved far from home to Chicago, my connection to my family’s legacy has only strengthened. Through organizing student movements in 2023, I learned about my mother’s similar experiences—witnessing her classmates being arrested and repressed. This parallel deepened my understanding of the continuity between our experiences across generations and Geographies.
I often reflect on the 2019 uprising in Chile, which I witnessed firsthand. Seeing mutual aid networks and street art deeply impacted me; an entire country brought to a standstill, not by the people, but by the disruption of its capitalist functions. The sense of joy and hope for a future beyond economic austerity is something I carry with me back to the United States.
I often describe my relationship to my family history, and to the broader political and economic ties between Chile and the U.S., as a canal. I see myself as a conduit between the frigid, tumultuous coast of Chile (representing my family’s history )and the warm, tranquil waters of South Florida, where I was raised. Yet beneath that surface calm, the coral reefs are bleaching. I imagine a future where collectives function like healthy coral reefs: vibrant, coexisting, and symbiotic.
This vision led me toward social practice. For this project, I collaborated to create square kites, a traditional form in the Andean mountains,screen-printed with portraits of children who died in ICE custody. My first encounter with these portraits was at Broadview on November 1st, where an altar had been created in their honor. When I returned the following weekend, the altar no longer held the images. In response, we took bedsheets from the Trump Hotel, dyed them with marigolds, and later flew them at the site. I also led a call-and-response, inspired by Chilean activist traditions used to honor martyrs. Through this work, I hope to bring attention to these lost lives within a larger diasporic narrative.
Ultimately, my family’s migration was driven by the search for dignity, stability, and opportunity in the face of political and economic repression. That history has shaped my relationship with my family and community, grounding it in shared memory, resilience, and unspoken inheritance. My understanding of home has shifted; it is no longer a fixed place, but a network of histories, struggles, and solidarities.
I feel the pull between my present life and my roots most strongly in moments of collective action, when I recognize echoes of Chilean resistance in my own experiences. I reconcile these tensions by embracing my role as a bridge between these worlds.
My hope is centered around building collective futures—ones rooted in care, mutual aid, and liberation. I dream of creating spaces and movements that, like coral reefs, sustain life through interdependence, resilience, and shared purpose.
Bio | Art Statement
Javier Viñuela | My work explores social poiesis as a way of engaging the forces that shape collective life. I am drawn to moments of confrontation with economic and social structures, while examining the living conditions that continue to organize the present. Rooted in a research-based practice, my approach moves through sites, counter-histories, and forms of fugitive planning that emerge within spaces of activism, subculture, and diaspora. Working across sculpture, printmedia, text, and social practice, I trace the aesthetics of contingencies and relations, pointing toward ways of being and organizing that exist alongside, and beyond the limits of the current.
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Creating this Group Project:
Photos creating and installing at Broadview ICE Facility: a group collaboration by Javier Viñuela, Sharvani Rathana, Janis Appleton, Stepen Clay, and Christian Varela:
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Featured Artists | Akira – Light that Heals • Alejandra Lemus • Angie Zaveleta • Anna Silivonchik • Bane-xxa • Calayah • Catherine Economopoulos • Christian Joshua Varela Solis • Cindy Uriostegui • Darth Rudo • El Poeta • Grecia Solorio • Idil Duman • Javier Viñuela • Jimena Hernández Aguilar • Julia Obrien • Kaltra • Kybo • Lorena Salinas • Lydia Gunn • Mariana Perez • Mary Antar • Michael Azpeitia • Papaya Guayaba • Peauxline • Rita Garcia Šindelář • Roele Phantom • santi[ago alvarado] • Schantelle Alonzo “Mishipiku” • Scribe • Tai Kojro-Badziak • Toni Maugeri • Valeria Osornio • Victoria Park • Victoria-Riza • Yekseny Guerrero