Cooperativa Visual

INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST DUO
BOLIVIA

Shirley (she/her) and Araceli (she/her) are the artist-duo of Cooperativa Visual, an interdisciplinary DIY collective of Bolivian women. In the past few years, they have been working with themes relating to the preservation of memory, through the mediums of image and sound to encourage critical reflections and new ways of thinking. They also work with a variety of communities who are being affected by extractivisms – extraction including deforestation and mining - within their territories and also with women whose lives have been damaged by the structural violence of patriarchy. Explore their work and follow them on Instagram.

Just as microorganisms sustain life, our micro-political encounters through the arts are as important to sustaining life as other forms of political struggles.
Shirley and Araceli, Cooperativa Visual

What role do you think art can play in social change?

Through the arts and artistic experimentations, we have  unique and vital encounters between diverse bodies and species to work collaboratively on political processes of resistance and transformation. The arts have allowed us to connect to our feelings and thoughts so that we can express this through language and experience together. Therefore, just as microorganisms sustain life, our micro-political encounters through the arts are as important to sustaining life as other forms of political struggles.

How would you describe your experience creating tech-art and supporting social movements?

We have organized a series of workshops in the city of Santa Cruz (Bolivia) in relation to global action for legal and safe abortion. In these, we have been able to share with various women, mothers, non-mothers and mainly with the lesbian community of this city. By choosing images and intervening with embroidery, we have been able to generate a safe and intimate space to share political reflections and experiences. As a result of this process, we have intervened together in the public space as an act of rejection of the censorship experienced by women and dissidents who think differently from the conservative and fascist class that controls that territory. Thus, the women of each movement who were involved in this collective action could speak their truth, their thoughts and political statements, through art, breaking the censorship. 

What do you hope to achieve through this award?

This award will allow us to continue organizing actions in the different territories and with different social movements as well as individuals. We have been working autonomously, and with this kind of support we would ensure materials for our next interventions and pedagogical actions.

Featured work

25 years of the exploitation of the Alumbrera open pit mine by western governments and corporations without fulfilling promises of work and care of the environment. Andalgalá is an epicenter that still resists extractivism. In defense of water and life. Andalgalá must be free of mega mining!
25 years of the exploitation of the Alumbrera open pit mine by western governments and corporations without fulfilling promises of work and care of the environment. Andalgalá is an epicenter that still resists extractivism. In defense of water and life. Andalgalá must be free of mega mining!
This first open pit mine in Bolivia generates conflicts in the Chukiña sector to this day related to the contamination of irrigation water from the Desaguadero River. The holes in the earth have been covered with water but the earth and water do not forget.
This first open pit mine in Bolivia generates conflicts in the Chukiña sector to this day related to the contamination of irrigation water from the Desaguadero River. The holes in the earth have been covered with water but the earth and water do not forget.
A woman of the lowlands doing what most women of the lowlands do, they create. They create art, they create daily living conditions for their families and environments, they create worlds in which other worlds are possible.
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