Salvador Allende Foundation will work in 2017 to recover part of the festive memory of the Popular Unity, gathering testimonies in every region of the country.
“It is a story that we believe has been hidden over the years”, says Carla Hernandez, coordinator of the project “Colección Up: Historias de esperanza” (UP Collection: Stories of Hope), on the occasion of the startup of a challenge that wants to recover testimonials of the Popular Unity period, and reveal a historic moment when people and supporters of the social change lived happily and hopefully in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Many times, the Popular Unity period has been shown as a time of fights and social crisis. However, everyday life was full of surprises that left a deep memory and filled with hope those aspirations for a better society. How did the mothers feel when their children received a free glass of milk for the first time? What was the experience of those families that went on vacation to the beach for the first time? How did the people of common neighborhoods celebrated UP’s victory?”, says Hernandez explaining the questions that the project wants to clarify.
The process of collecting testimonials and objects will happen between July and November of this year and Salvador Allende Foundation is calling to collaborate with the initiative.
At the end of the process, the FSA expects to collect many interviews and objects that will be the foundation for the creation of a Popular Unity citizen archive, which will be available for free to everyone who wants to access it, as a learning tool, source of research and supplies for future itinerant exhibitions.