Chilean Women Defend Water with Public Art
by Rachele Donnini
For thousands of years, water has been treated by women in Chile's indigenous communities as a common good, a resource to be cared for, protected, and preserved. In 1981, with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, things began to change. With the introduction of the Water Code, promulgated in 1981, water was defined as a commodity to be privatized, becoming the prerogative of a "few," particularly industries and multinationals. As Rodrigo Mundaca, agronomy professor and governor of the Valparaiso region, explains in his contribution to the Mostrador, during the dictatorship water began to be provided free of charge and in perpetuity to private individuals, generating a "water market", in which these private individuals could sell, lease, monopolize, or inherit water, regardless of weather conditions.
As a result, a lot of citizens, particularly farmers in the Valparaiso region of central Chile, but not only, have seen their rivers dry up, leaving them faced with a barren and dry landscape, as reported by testimonies collected by MUCHECH, the Chilean Peasant and Ethnic Unity Movement. According to data from the MOP (Ministerio de Obras Publicas) water report, approximately 6.3 million people in 128 Chilean municipalities experienced drought in 2023.
But the lack of water is directly linked to industry, particularly the agricultural sector for the production of avocados for export. According to data reported by a University of Chile study conducted in the Valparaiso region, the central part of the state most affected by drought, approximately 876 cubic meters (comparable to the volume of 350 standard Olympic-sized swimming pools) are estimated for one ton of avocados. This excessive water consumption, calculated in the study as 93 times greater than the water available in the Ligua River, also in the Valparaiso region, represents an unsustainable activity over time, drying up the water available in the reservoirs. Excessive water consumption is also due to the biological characteristics of avocado trees: their roots, concentrated in the top 20-60 cm of soil, do not allow full access to deeper water, and, at the same time, their leaves transpire large quantities of water in order to maintain high photosynthesis.
According to recent data from the Chilean Committee of Avocado Exports (Comite de Paltas de Chile), during the 2024-2025 season, Europe has been the main destination market, receiving 57% of exports (approximately 77,000 tons out of a total of 136,000 tons destined for export). Due to this foreign demand, as reported in another report by the Chilean Committee of Avocado Exports on avocado production and varieties in Latin America, this fruit has earned the nickname "green gold" over time, particularly due to its high market price, which peaked at 10,000 pesos per kilo in 2023.
Water distribution in Chile is therefore unequal: intensive cultivation and the over-allocation of water rights, granted since the 1980s and 1990s only to the agribusiness and mining sectors, have turned it into a luxury good. As reported in a study by three researchers from the University of the Americas of Chile (Juan Correa-Parra, José Vergara-Peruchich, and Carlos Aguirre-Nuñez), 1% of water holders own 79.02% of the water, and 90% of this resource is in the hands of the agribusiness and mining sectors.
Water Widows’ Resistance Through Art
As water is being privatized, women from various communities, particularly in the Valparaiso region, are demanding action against the usurpation of this resource.
The most consolidated group in this resistance is Mujeres Modatima - Movement for the Defense of Access to Water, Land and Defense of the Environment, founded in the municipality of Petorca in 2010. The organization's hallmark is its ongoing struggle to reclaim water for communities, making it a common good and a human right. One of their most frequently chanted slogans during demonstrations is:
“De las mujeres como del agua depende la vida”. "Life depends on women as it does on water."
Among them, a woman is coordinating the fight against industrial extractivism and the defense of water through art. Her name is Raquel Gonzalez, a longtime activist of the Mujeres Modatima group and a teacher at the rural high school in Pullaly (a town in the province of Petorca, also in the Valparaiso region). In 2019, Raquel founded the group Viudas del Agua, Water Widows, the artistic branch of the Mujeres Modatima movement. These widows are women without husbands who never died, but who emigrated elsewhere in search of better climate and working conditions. With the slogan ‘Nos quieren monocultivo pero somos bosque nativo’ – they want to make us monocultures, but we are a native forest – these women, who in 2021 adopted the name Mujeres del Agua, use their artistic practices to share the situation of the land where they grew up and how they have seen it change, witnessing firsthand the drying up of the rivers.
"One of the first plays we presented was El Despojo (The Plunder) at the Valle de Liwa Festival," Raquel Gonzalez explains to Voice Over Foundation. "It wasn't just about water, but also about the plundering of women, as we experience it ourselves. It was about how we cope, how we protect ourselves, how we support each other in these moments, when we feel like we have no one by our side.
It's not just about the expropriation of water, but everything that comes with it: the expropriation of family, health, sanitation, food.”
The work "The Plunder - El Despojo" was performed by three teachers and Mujeres del Agua: Gabriela Valdivia Vilches, Tania Hernández González, and Raquel González. Through the languages of theater and dance, this work depicts the relationship between a mother and daughter who find themselves in a drought, trying to embrace, support, and advance along a parched path.
"El Despojo" is not the first artistic work to place water at the center of public debate.
Patricia Domínguez is a Chilean visual artist who invited the Mujeres del Agua to be part of her cast for the play "The Ballad of the Dry Sirens." "She came here to the province to film and observe, conduct research, and take photographs," recalls Raquel González. Domínguez's work was presented for the first time at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid in 2021.
Called to document the environmental disaster caused by avocado monoculture and the massive drought, the director shows the Mujeres del agua in this video surrounded by plantations of "green gold," arid lands, and carcasses of animals dead from dehydration. In the opening minutes of the film, Dominguez shows widows using their tongues to extract water from the dried avocado trees. As university professor Maria José Barros observes in her analysis of the film, the shape of the avocados and their rough, drooping appearance suggests the shape of proper testicles and thus the presence of patriarchal exploitation of the land.
Another important work that captures the artistic essence of these women is the book "Aguas Libres", in which Maria José Barros interviews eight Chilean artists, including several Mujeres del agua, who work for the defense of water. One artist interviewed is Sebastián Calfuqueo, a Mapuche woman who, through her works such as Espejo de Agua (2021), addresses the issue of the defense of indigenous territories threatened by extractive capitalism. Calfuqueo's exhibition is divided into two parts. The first is Mercados del Agua: 27 blue ceramic drums arranged symmetrically on the floor, above each one written words from the Código de las Aguas (such as decree, extraction, lluvias). In this first part, the water, instead of flowing freely, is imprisoned in the containers. In the second part, "Palabras al agua," we observe a river made of canvas falling from above. Walking along the riverbank, we read phrases like: ‘No separar las aguas de la tierra’, "Do not separate the water from the land."
Among the projects promoted by Mujeres del Agua, also in collaboration with Modatima, is the Modatima Environmental School, a project that aims to impart knowledge and skills to recognize and mitigate environmental problems among the children and adolescents of Petorca.
Following the installation of three greenhouses, project participants were able to plant various agricultural crops, learning concepts about agriculture, germination, and sustainable water use. "This project was a starting point for teaching environmental awareness to children," explains Raquel.
The core of the project was the planting of native species and the children's monitoring of their subsequent growth. Although the school is currently closed due to lack of funding, their goal remains educational. "Now we want to find a way to train guides who can help teachers address water and environmental issues and the loss of cultural identity in the classroom."
Reconnecting with Indigenous Culture and the Environment
Precisely because of this connection to their cultural identity and their Diaguita ancestors (an indigenous population who inhabited the Andean region of Norte Chico in Chile and northwestern Argentina from 1000 AD until the Inca and Spanish colonization), other active programs include one on the recovery of ancestral knowledge to combat climate change, which began in December 2024 and is still ongoing. This program, carried out by the widows in collaboration with approximately fifteen women and three children, primarily from Puyallí, involved the cultivation of medicinal plants, where they learned to recognize and care for them. Divided into several meetings led by Carito Quiñones (founder of the Warmi Medicina de la Tierra group), the mujeres del agua studied and learned ancient methods of plant and water management, which they then applied firsthand. Through these meetings, the women used the principles of phytocosmetics and created biodegradable personal care products through sustainable processes.
Finally, part of this program was dedicated to the nighttime excursion to the Alicahué Valley, in the Cabildo, which took place on March 29, 2025. "It's the only valley in the province of Petorca that still has water," Raquel continues,
"so our idea was to enhance that area so that people can learn about and continue to recognize the diversity of flora and fauna that provides us with water and that we no longer find in our region. We also called in an astrophotographer and we looked at the constellations, analyzed the Southern Cross, and the relationship the stars have with our land, with our ancestors, and how they guide and protect us."
According to Raquel, from 2023 onward, public opinion began to talk less about the plight of her people due to increased rainfall. However, according to the activist, this phenomenon represents both good and bad news.
"The history of my people has a fragile memory," Raquel continues. "As long as we have this vital resource, everything is fine. Then, when things start to go wrong, when it stops raining and we no longer have water, then we begin to remember it again. So we don't have to wait for difficult times to remember what's happening to us."
Raquel González and the Mujeres del Agua continue, through their artistic activism, to fight against the fragility of memory and to promote activities that connect with the nature of their land and the customs of their ancestors. "Because before the political struggle, there's a need to educate society. Because we must go back, recover our memory, and with it, the memory of water."
Leggi anche
