Last week the North Country once again played host to renowned artist Francisco Letelier. If the name isn’t familiar, perhaps you’ve seen his murals hanging in ODY. One depicts a last-supper-like scenario, except a whole host of world leaders (past and present) sit around the table, painted in a comedically garish manner. They dine on bananas, an assortment of missiles, what appears to be a freshly killed chicken and a bleeding whale. Across the room, a separate mural depicts a burning church, women in bright traditional Chilean dress crafting arpilleras (small, fabric Chilean tapestries) and a flying woman holding a picture of a lost loved one. A common theme unites the two: “No theory of people and society be [sic] currently serving the needs of both humankind and the planet.”

Francisco Letelier’s murals are often political in nature. His work comes out of a Chilean artistic tradition that views “walls as blackboards of the people,” to adopt Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda’s wording. Chilean murals grew from graffiti. They were collective efforts, a means to channel energy, that often dealt with daily issues. And they were often fleeting. Here one day, gone the next.

Chile’s modern history is a tumultuous one. In 1970, Salvador Allende was elected president. Orlando Letelier, Francisco Letelier’s father, served as ambassador to the U.S. during the Allende years. However, Allende’s presidency was short lived. On Sept. 11, 1973, a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet swept the nation’s capital. This marked the beginning of an era of mass incarcerations, torture, disappearances and fear, forcing the Letelier family into exile.

Francisco Letelier’s personal history is just as tumultuous. On Sept. 21, 1976, a car bomb detonated in Washington, D.C. killing both Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt in an audacious act of international terrorism on U.S. soil. An FBI investigation discovered that the orders for the attack came directly from the highest levels of the Pinochet administration.

In many ways, Francisco Letelier’s work arises from the ashes of this past. His work seeks the historical truth, even if historical truth can never truly be uncovered. His work sometimes contains themes of reconciliation and forgiveness. As Letelier sees it, just being able to tell your story is a way to move forward. But at the end of the day, reconciliation is personal. As Letelier puts it, “it’s a negotiation with your past and present.”

In addition to themes of reconciliation and forgiveness, Letelier’s work also speaks on his experience as an exile. He addresses the difficulties of existing in the place where separate cultures met. As a child, Letelier struggled with feeling less Chilean because he speaks English. However, he has come to view cultural traditions as less a matter of geographic location, but more as a state of being. In the end, nature does not care about political or national boundaries. As Letelier says, “we’re all in it together more than ever before.”

The Bridging Cultures Mural, Letelier’s newest project, speaks to this and other themes that strive to address a need for solidarity as well as actions that support human rights and democracy in both Chile and other Latin American countries. The Bridging Cultures Mural Project at SUNY Potsdam was a collaborative project consisting of members of both the St. Lawrence University and SUNY Potsdam communities. It is in conjunction with the Forging Memory “Sewn in Protest” exhibition of Chilean Arpilleras at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery. The Arpillera exhibition runs through April 11.    

For more information on the Bridging Cultures Mural and Letelier’s other works please visit https://www.facebook.com/bridgingculturesmural/ or https://www.forgingmemory.org/.