Commitment and Courage

Dear Magdalenas,

I write to you from Santiago de Chile, having closed 2018 with the organization of Mestiza Chile that gave visibility to women's stage arts and generated spaces for exchange and networking. We began 2019 with our participation in the Tantidhatri Festival in India, where we were in contact with artists from faraway latitudes. We opened ourselves to the art forms of India and other countries of the East in the view of establishing an exchange channel and hoping that they will be part of an upcoming Mestiza. Opening and extending the network seems important as we rethink about what we do as artists and cultural managers, especially as part of the network. We face the deep need to continue weaving this women's global network at all possible levels and in the diversity that it embraces. 

Magdalena is particularly important to us because it is built from gatherings and exchanges. There is always an opportunity for dialogue and inspiration in these gatherings and exchanges as we are brought together in the beautiful diversity that we are. It traces a network woven together driven by parameters that escape the hegemonic hierarchies and depends on the commitment and courage of each participant.

Particularly in Chile we believe that the Magdalena may contribute with the recovering of a gathering culture which has been lost and is still daily lost in the capitalist project set up by the dictatorship. We believe in the value of meetings, of sharing artworks and motivations of artists of various cultures but above all in what the Magdalena may articulate in the community of local artists. Because when we meet and feel in a community our work is strengthened - it connects us, opens up possibilities and nourishes and supports us. Each Magdalena is a microcosm, connected to each other, making this land fertile for us and those who will come.

With love, Mestizas