The final moments of the song hung in the air, lingering in crystal-clear notes that echoed with heavy emotion as the two singers looked into each other’s eyes repeating, “Hermana, yo te quiero” (Sister, I love you). The audience was a picture of focus, clinging to every lyric. The small crowd rose and clapped, and the celebration was quickly followed by a burst of hugs and hastily brushed back tears.
Throughout the week of March 9, the Hatch welcomed Purple Thread, a Women’s Day art exhibition featuring Latin American artists exploring their artistic forms and interpretations of feminism. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Mexican Student Association (MEXSA) as part of their event lineup celebrating International Women’s Day. Other events included a panel discussion on March 4 by UBC’s Dr. Isabel Machado and local activist Maria Fernanda Haslbeck, and a dedicated contingent in the 8M protest — the annual International’s Women’s Day march led by Latin feminist organizations.
Camila Sánchez, VP events outreach at MEXSA, started organizing the Purple Thread exhibition back in November. A staff member at the Hatch with experience in feminist organization and a participating artist herself, she said the theme of the purple thread — beyond the colour typically representing the feminist movement in Mexico — is “about solidarity” and how the movement, the things it stands for and the shared experience of being a woman are emotionally connected.
For third-year BFA student Carmen Toledo Bores, bringing forth the Latin American experience of Women’s Day in art was a special way to unite the community. Toledo Bores said there are “a lot of different issues that are not necessarily talked about when it comes to women and Women's Day that are very real in Latin America and are starting to be brought up through these spaces.” She said it can be difficult for people in the Latin community to find each other, and a forum bringing together almost all Latin women artists was especially important to her.
Toledo Bores is one of seven artists included in the exhibition, which features UBC students as well as artists from the wider Vancouver Latin community. She presented her piece, Polyphagie, on opening night. Displayed across the room, each of the work’s distinct materials caught the viewer’s eye in a different way: acrylic painting, collage, layered glass and a detailed corset made from upcycled materials such as buttons and beer caps.
In the shape of a female bust, the work’s vivid warm colours and swirls accentuated the body’s position, bringing the focus to the central piece framed by the subject’s fingers: a three-dimensional vulva with outstretched petal-labia — made from unrecognizably transformed egg cartons — that reached beyond the canvas.
Beside it was Tonantzin-Guadalupe, which Morgana Amaro, an artist who works mononymously under the name Morgana, described as a fusion of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Mexica mother goddess Tonantzin. She said that she created the piece as “a resource for women [who] don't have someone to pray to.”
Staring down at the viewer, the acrylic Tonantzin-Guadalupe was full of bold colours and radiated protectiveness and intensity, carrying two human hearts in her hands and bearing a skull where her vulva would be. Wrapped around her body is a thread bearing the names of femicide victims.
Andrea Ramírez, a second-year UBC visual arts student whose work compiled six protest signs from her years of 8M protest, said she was showing the signs at the Hatch because “Latinas and Mexicans understand what they are, understand the phrases and the movement, but I know that there's a lot of people around the world [who] don't necessarily see that.” Ramírez said she saw this as a chance for people outside of Latin America to understand the perspectives and feelings of Latin women through art.
Vancouver’s Latin-American celebration of 8M, led in recent years by the Latin feminist collective Hermanas Sin Fronteras, has been a tradition since 2020. It centres protest against femicides and sexual violence with — typically Spanish — protest songs and chants. According to Morgana, a founding member of the collective, the tradition has begun to shift to include more non-Spanish speakers, with the inclusion of Indigenous groups raising awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The first portion of the exhibition’s opening at the Hatch was dedicated to artists sharing their work and inspirations. The platform allowed for the artists to reveal their favourite intimate details of their pieces. One of the signs exhibited by Ramírez, for example, still had finger-marks etched in the paper from when she held it in protest.
The second part of the night — led by musicians Deni Olivares and Clara Troni — was dedicated to Colombian, Spanish and Mexican music, which celebrated women and women’s rights. Already captivating the crowd with their improvised jam session — which I mistook as part of the planned concert — their lineup included songs like “No Me Toques Mal” by Santiago Navas and La Muchacha.
Olivares and Troni’s performance blended melodic tones with powerful messaging, expressed in the lyrics and their speeches between the songs. The pair dedicated their set to international solidarity against femicide and violence against women everywhere — including women in Iran, Palestine, Mexico and Indigenous women in Canada. Their rendition of Pedro Pastor’s “Amar” accompanied by projected English lyrics, was lively and featured an impressive and beautifully jazzy kazoo riff from Olivares.
Finally, the pair introduced the last song of the night, with Troni reminding that one out of every 10 women who are killed in femicides in Mexico each day are “earth and seed” who need to be fought for. Calling for the audience to remember the stories of the real women behind the statistics, Olivares read a segment of Cristina Rivera Garza’s “El Invencible Verano de Liliana.” Their rendition of “Si Me Matan” by Silvana Estrada was a slow, melodic and heartwrenching finale, as each reprise of the chorus became more emotional and impactful.
Sánchez said she misses being part of the protests in Mexico and “feeling embraced by all the other women,” where sometimes as many as 120,000 would gather together to show support.
“When you experience it once,” she said, “you really want to feel it again, not just that day, but just being there for every other woman. It really changes you … I wanted to bring that joy or that feeling with me that's very beautiful, from the movement over there to over here.”
