The Chilean Mural in the University of Konstanz
A particularly historic Chilean mural hangs near the Audimax of the University of Konstanz.
This mural was painted by Salvador Allende's exile brigade on April 25, 1977, during a concert by Quilapayún, who played songs of the Nueva Canción Chilena in the crowded Audimax.
The 1.70 x 8.10 meter large mural thematizes the freedom struggle of the Chilean people. In the center of the picture a female figure with bared chest looks directly at the viewers. The half of her long hair blowing to the right forms the Chilean flag. She recalls Eugène Delacroix's personification of freedom in La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830). Her strands merge into a worker figure, this one embracing a factory chimney. On the left of the picture, the hair of the female figure merges into the mop of hair of a male figure. Her facial expression appears determined, matching the oversized fist that is also facing left. Her hands and the hands of the figure in the center, which are orange, close together. Next to the man's face is a white dove, reminiscent of the dove in Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937). Below the same figure is a light blue globe with parchment scroll; it symbolizes the importance of education and historiography.
On September 11, 1973, the military, on the orders of Augusto Pinochet, bombed the government palace La Moneda, putsched the government of the democratically elected, socialist president Salvador Allende, and established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1990. Many Chileans were arrested, tortured, disappeared forever, and many fled into exile.
accepted several exiled Chileans: Mario Duran Vidal (sociologist), Eduardo Arancibia Delâno (philosopher/sociologist), Alicia Dominguez Diaz (professor of statistics), Benjamin Suárez Isla (chemistry doctoral student), and Francisco Otey (lawyer). The "Chile-Komitee Konstanz" supported the exiles, among other things, in the protracted negotiations with the Stuttgart Ministry of the Interior regarding residence permits.
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Constance and Chilean students and lecturers founded a singing group that sang Nueva Canción Chilena songs all over Baden-Württemberg, becoming mediators of a Chilean and divided history. On April 25, 1977, they organized a concert with the Chilean band Quilapayún, which was on tour in Europe at the time of the coup and had to remain in exile until 1988. During their concert in the Audimax of the University of Konstanz, their exiled compatriots of the Brigade Salvador Allende painted the mural on canvas that still hangs on the A7 level.
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Exiles in Frankfurt had joined forces in the mid 1970s in the group Salvador Allende Brigade. Until 1980 they painted about 100 murales on the streets, in churches, universities (Bielefeld, Münster, ...), youth centers and theaters in various cities in West Germany, France, Switzerland, and the former GDR. As a collective, the group is probably related to the most famous representatives of Chilean Muralismo, the Brigada Ramona Parra (BRP). An important political-artistic movement, the BRP shaped urban public space with their colorful murales on socio-political themes.
The peak of their work was during the presidential campaign for Salvador Allende and then during his government. After the coup, the murales were removed by the military dictatorship and the muralists were forced into clandestinity. During the last years, the Brigadas came back more and more, campaigning for example for the presidency of Gabriel Boric, against the violence on women, or for the Apruebo, the approval of the new draft constitution.
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Although the mural of the University of Konstanz always hung clearly visible on the A7 level near the Audimax, its multifaceted history had long been forgotten. In the summer semester of 2017, the Constance Chile Mural became the topic of a seminar taught by the Romance Studies scholar Sandra Rudman. Together with the students, they dove into the university archives and reconstructed the history you just read.
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They established contact with Boris Eichin of the Brigade Salvador Allende, and with Benjamin Súarez, who at the time, as an exiled Chilean at the University of Konstanz, took the initiative of the concert. The mural was restored from July 17 to 21, 2017, under the direction of Boris Eichin, and together with his son Andrei Eichin. The restorer Rosa Maria Pittà-Settelmeyer of the city Museums of Constance accompanied this process. The dedication ceremony on July 21, 2017, celebrated the official recognition of the important mural for the University of Konstanz in its 40th anniversary year. As then, songs of the Nueva Cancion Chilena were played for the occasion, this time by the Trio of Musikandes.
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* Former principal Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.c Ulrich Rüdiger, Dr. Dagmar Schmieder, Rosa Pittá-Settelmeyer (restorer, City of Constance), Prof. Dr. Kirsten Mahlke, Dr. Carolina Pizarro, Boris Eichin, Brigade Salvador Allende, Andrei Eichin, Benjamín Suárez, Prof. Dr. Beate Ochsner
*the students of the project: Joanne Rodriguez, Bettina Bliss, Raphaela Breisch, Mareike Buck, Anna Dachs, Ana Ramírez Hinojosa, Caroline Wuttke
*the musicians of Musikandes, the photographer Javiera Santos and the filmmaker Lukas Burg