When Cecilia Vicuña first arrived in London, she was a 24-year-old student from Santiago holding a British Council scholarship for the Slade School of Art. She expected her stay to be fleeting, leaving her suitcase largely packed. That changed in September 1973, when General Augusto Pinochet’s military coup toppled Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. As one of the few Chilean students in London expelled from their university, she faced imminent removal from the UK. Her legal team successfully argued at a Home Office hearing that she would face death if forced to return to Chile, bolstered by the presentation of her recently published book of art and poetrySaboramiwhich detailed the aftermath of the coup. According to “It’s really one of the main stories of my life,” Vicuña, Now. “How my poetry came to protect my wellbeing.”. She speaks softly and sagely, like a shaman offering advice – small and fragile, but with big, existential ideas about life and art, wearing a knitted hat. “There have been a few attempts to tell this story without my presence,” she says. “The story has been told as if I was a visitor to the organisation.”.
Reflecting on that period, the 78-year-old artist and activist, who has lived in New York since 1980, describes the experience as a defining moment. She credits her poetry with protecting her well-being during a time of immense uncertainty. Now, more than half a century after her initial arrival, she is returning to Stepney Green—the area where she once resided—for her first major exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. She has mixed feelings. “In a way, I’m going back to relieve my original experience,” she says.
Vicuña recalls the London of the 1970s as a far cry from the vibrant “swinging London” global image. She remembers extreme poverty, noting that residents often had to scramble for pennies just to heat their small living spaces. Despite the prevailing sense of sadness, she found community among fellow exiles fleeing failed revolutions across Africa, the Middle East, Greece, and Latin America. It was here that she found a thriving creative circle and published her first book after it had faced censorship in Chile. People were extremely poor,” she says. “People had to put a penny to heat their little apartments, the London Vicuña encountered in the 1970s was very different from the image of “swinging London” exported around the world. “When you walked down the streets. Of not being able to realise one’s full potential.”, there was a feeling of sadness.
The upcoming exhibitionLiving Threadschronicles six decades of her work, encompassing painting, textiles, photography, film, and installations. It also documents her political roots, including her time speaking at trade union events in London pubs. A significant portion of the gallery is devoted toArtists for Democracya collective she co-founded in 1974 alongside Guy Brett, David Medalla, and John Dugger to support international liberation struggles. Which Vicuña co-founded in 1974 with Guy Brett, David Medalla and John Dugger in solidarity with Chile and other liberation struggles worldwide, bringing together never-before-seen documents, photographs and printed materials, a room is dedicated to Artists for Democracy.
Vicuña notes that her involvement in the group began after a chance encounter at the ICA. After hearing a discussion focused on artists’ rights and sales while people were actively dying in Chile, she stepped up to voice her frustration. That intervention led to her deeper integration into the London activist scene. She remains critical of the UK’s role at the time, noting that Britain was the first country to recognize Pinochet’s regime, despite simultaneously offering her legal asylum. “England was the first country to acknowledge Pinochet as the new leader of Chile,” she adds. “This violent overthrow of democratic government was celebrated by Britain.
The retrospective also addresses the personal cost of her displacement. Much of her early work was lost or destroyed during her exile, including a trunk containing 400 sculptures discarded by others. While she has recreated some pieces from memory and photographs, she emphasizes that these are not simple reconstructions. The exhibition incorporates these salvaged narratives alongside her signatureprecariosfragile, ephemeral works created from debris, sticks, and feathers that express her philosophy that disappearance and preservation are part of the same cycle of regeneration.
Central to her practice are herquipuswhich reinterpret ancient Andean knotted-string communication systems. The Whitechapel show will featureQuipu Menstrualan expansive, deep-red installation. These works, alongside her advocacy, increasingly focus on ecological preservation. She laments the state of Latin America, arguing that the continent faces severe degradation due to extractive industries she describes as a fundamental threat to life.
Vicuña, who gained late-career institutional recognition starting with her 2017 inclusion in Documenta at age 69, expresses hope that the retrospective will provide a sense of healing. Having navigated decades of relative obscurity, she is now regarded as one of Latin America’s most influential feminist and artistic voices, carrying a legacy of resilience shaped by the very displacement that brought her to London five decades ago.
