Spatial Solidarities

Between 1973 and 1990, the authoritarian military dictatorship of Chile maintained its control through a network of detention and torture centers designed to create fear and isolation. With this book, Ana María Leon examines how architects, artists, activists, and other political agents resisted the Chilean regime through spatial practices. Within these spaces, prisoners responded creatively: producing drawings, performances, and architectural projects; rearranging their bodies and living areas; and connecting through songs, shadows, and mutual care. They collected resources, created systems of mutual aid, and smuggled out site plans and names to expose the regime’s crimes. Some imagined their detention centers as free towns, reversing the logic of imprisonment through theatrical acts. These cultural responses, Leon reveals, are forms of spatial solidarity—acts of connection, care, and imagination. By focusing on spatial history, her book reclaims the experiences of the disappeared through the spaces they shaped. It also conveys how architecture can be a tool for resistance, justice, and collective survival.