Who we are
We are Pájarx entre Púas, a transfeminist organization dedicated to working in women's and LGBTQ+ prisons, as well as in post-release contexts. We are approaching our tenth anniversary of artistic and cultural creation, participation, and community action research. We carry out transdisciplinary work to defend the human rights of incarcerated women and gender and sexual minorities. We are committed to building a creative, diverse, and horizontal sisterhood community that, through art, affection, and recognition, can confront exclusion and violence, weaving networks of support, democratization, participation, and cultural creation.
We seek to support and reverse processes of violence through creative work, community life , and an unwavering commitment to the human and cultural rights of incarcerated individuals. We maintain that prison deepens social inequalities and exacerbates the violence experienced by incarcerated people, particularly women and gender and sexual minorities, throughout their lives. Therefore, we believe it is urgent to rethink alternative forms of justice from feminist and community perspectives .
We place reparation at the heart of building a new, intersectional, and collective ethic that allows us to heal the biographical and social wounds inflicted by structural and gender-based violence. We create spaces and opportunities to denormalize and break the cycle of transgenerational violence and imprisonment that disproportionately affects women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and children.
Through artistic and cultural tools, such as painting, photography, performance, music, collage, and textile art, among others, we weave community and creative networks that foster dialogue and bring visibility to the painful experience of incarceration. We connect with public spaces, neighborhoods, communities, and prisons in our region to repair the eroded social fabric. Together, we seek to confront multidimensional poverty, gender-based violence, marginalization, racism, and the historical exclusion that trigger incarceration.
We have developed creative processes, action research, workshops, and programs in all women's prisons in the Valparaíso region of Chile. We work from a somatic and dialogical methodology , connecting the prisons with the public sphere and, in particular, with cultural centers and organizations that join this community. We also carry out interventions and collaborations in other regions of the country and Latin America, to build restorative bridges through the arts.
Our collaborative work brings to light other aspects of incarcerated individuals, aiming to demystify the stigma surrounding them. These artistic expressions create a channel of communication that challenges the barrier of exclusion and segregation experienced within prisons, becoming a sensitive bridge between incarcerated individuals and the wider community.
MISSION
Our mission is to build a Sisterhood Community that improves the quality of life for women and gender-diverse individuals who are incarcerated, recently released, as well as for children and families. We seek to establish intersectional feminist activism networks that connect public spaces, neighborhoods, communities, and prisons to repair the damage caused by incarceration. We confront multidimensional poverty, gender-based violence, and historical marginalization exacerbated by a heteropatriarchal and neoliberal system that uses punishment and incarceration as a tool of justice. Our mission is to imagine and build worlds without prisons, outside of punitive logics, using the arts as the primary tool for transformation and reparation of the damage caused by structural violence. We consider community to be the fundamental support network and mechanism of resistance, seeking to redefine and validate life stories.
To challenge this punitive model, we promote human rights , managing specific actions for their defense, and the eradication of structural violence through three lines of action:
Participation and Artistic-Cultural Creation: We facilitate participation in artistic and cultural activities inside and outside prisons, promoting the reconstruction of social cohesion and challenging the normalization of patriarchal violence.
Reparation and Social Cohesion: We establish community networks that defend the rights of the Sister Community, providing access to resources and creating spaces of resistance, accompanied by psychosocial, legal and labor support.
Social Impact: Through visibility and awareness, we seek to redefine public perceptions of women and diverse people deprived of their liberty, and thus promote alternative justice from a gender perspective for people deprived of their liberty, those released from prison, their families, and children.
VISION
Our vision is to transform the justice system into a model of equity and inclusivity with a gender perspective , free from patriarchal and punitive structures that perpetuate violence and inequality. We envision a world where women, gender and sexual minorities, and children , both inside and outside prisons, can break the cycles of transgenerational violence and fully access their rights to a dignified life .
We aim to influence public policy to guarantee the protection of individuals and advocate for cultural changes that promote universal access to the arts and culture as tools for empowerment and transformation. We are committed to the release of prisoners and work tirelessly for the collective construction of a Sisterhood Community . This community is the direct response to violence through mutual support, accompaniment, and the pursuit of justice .
Our vision is to transform the justice system into a model of equity and inclusivity with a gender perspective, free from patriarchal and punitive structures that perpetuate violence and inequality. We envision a world where women, gender and sexual minorities, and children, both inside and outside prisons, can break the cycles of transgenerational violence and fully access their rights to a dignified life.
We aim to influence public policy to guarantee the protection of individuals and advocate for cultural changes that promote universal access to the arts and culture as tools for empowerment and transformation. We are committed to the release of prisoners and work tirelessly for the collective construction of a Sisterhood Community. This community is the direct response to violence through mutual support, accompaniment, and the pursuit of justice.
Our mission is to build a Sisterhood Community that improves the quality of life for women and gender-diverse individuals who are incarcerated, those who have been released, as well as for children and families. We seek to establish intersectional feminist activism networks that connect public spaces, neighborhoods, communities, and prisons to repair the damage caused by incarceration. We confront multidimensional poverty, gender-based violence, and historical marginalization exacerbated by a heteropatriarchal and neoliberal system that uses punishment and incarceration as a tool of justice. Our mission is to imagine and build worlds without prisons, outside of punitive logics, using the arts as the primary tool for transformation and repairing the damage caused by structural violence. We consider community to be the fundamental support network and mechanism of resistance, seeking to reframe and validate life stories.
To challenge this punitive model, we promote human rights, managing specific actions for their defense, and the eradication of structural violence through three lines of action:
-
Participation and Artistic-Cultural Creation: We facilitate participation in artistic and cultural activities inside and outside prisons, promoting the reconstruction of social cohesion and challenging the normalization of patriarchal violence.
-
Reparation and Social Cohesion: We establish community networks that defend the rights of the Sister Community, providing access to resources and creating spaces of resistance, accompanied by psychosocial, legal and labor support.
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Political Advocacy: Through visibility and awareness, we seek to redefine public perceptions of women and diverse people deprived of their liberty, and thus promote alternative justice systems from a gender perspective for people deprived of their liberty, those released from prison, their families, and children.
VISION
OUR HISTORY
On March 8, 2025, the Public Criminal Defense Office awarded us a Recognition for our commitment and ongoing support to women deprived of their liberty.
We are part of the official delegation of the Government of Chile to the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), an organ of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), from March 10 to 21, 2025 in New York.
We create a safe and inclusive space where the community strengthens its artistic skills, addressing the harms of sexist and patriarchal violence. Art is used as a tool for communication, resistance, and collective transformation.
December 10: International Human Rights Day. The Human Rights Department of GENCHI awarded us recognition for our track record and work with the incarcerated community in the fifth region.
We actively participated in and brought collectively created materials from prisons in Chile to the Talavera Bruce Women's Prison in Rio de Janeiro. This effort was made possible through a collaborative effort with the University of Rio de Janeiro and its Prison Theatre program, which involved artists from the region. Together, we sought to promote art and culture as tools for social transformation, opening spaces for expression through theatre.
The meeting between collectives from Latin America provided us with the opportunity to exchange experiences on art as a tool of resistance against punitive systems, with a special focus on incarcerated women. The event culminated with the presentation of strategies to ensure the sustainability of the Network and the development of new forms of struggle.
We participated in the International Meeting of Arts in Prisons: Dialogues on artistic experiences with incarcerated women and dissidents to build other possible worlds.
On March 8th, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Women awarded us a Recognition for the Defense of Human Rights and Memory in the Valparaíso region. This honor highlights our commitment to historical memory and the fight for fundamental rights.
Our community was recognized and validated as a Community Culture Point by a national public program, under the responsibility of the Department of Cultural Citizenship of the Undersecretariat of Cultures and Arts, of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage.
University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
Our editorial team seeks to highlight the experiences of resistance of women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and children in prison, promoting debate and critical analysis of issues such as punishment, motherhood, and diversity, among others. Our transdisciplinary approach fosters collective writing as an act of resistance, as well as a tool for denunciation and expression.
The Network of Prison Councils was a citizen initiative created within the context of the Constitutional Convention to guarantee the political participation of incarcerated individuals in Chile. Pájarx entre Púas was part of its national organization and led the councils in the Valparaíso region. Through spaces for consultation and debate, demands were gathered from the prisons, systematizing the results for submission to the Convention and subsequent return to the prisons.
After a long process of action within women's prisons, the transdisciplinary stage work is collectively constructed, starring women deprived of liberty in the Penitentiary Compliance Center (CPF) of Valparaíso, as well as women who, after their time in prison, are now part of our Sisterly Community.
Our Nido project arose with the goal of strengthening the emotional and maternal bonds between incarcerated mothers and their children during the child-rearing period in a prison setting. To this end, we maintain a permanent workshop space for incarcerated women who are released from the La Pólvora CET (Work and Education Center) and reunite with their children on significant dates, within a safe and loving environment built around the arts. To date, we have held 10 meetings at the Valparaíso Cultural Park, a former prison.
Our Encuentro y Galería Arte en Fuga presents premieres and exhibitions of works created in contexts of incarceration, with a focus on gender, sexual and gender dissidence, and childhood in prison. Its aim is to connect artivists, incarcerated individuals, and organizations working with the arts in prison settings, both nationally and internationally.
We collaborate with the Valparaíso Cultural Park – Former Public Prison, establishing links between women's prisons and cultural centers in the 5th region, with the aim of promoting artistic and cultural participation through workshops and activities that foster social transformation and access to cultural rights.
Our legal consolidation as a Foundation represents a fundamental step in strengthening and formalizing Pájarx entre Púas. This achievement allows us to operate officially, expand our reach, and access new opportunities to continue fulfilling our mission and objectives.
We participated in the First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting on Justice: A Critique of the Penal and Penitentiary Systems Towards a Feminist Justice System.
Premiere of a transdisciplinary work that connects the prison and the street through movement, dance and memories, linking the biographies of diverse women.
Participation in the dance festival with the trilogy "Silhouettes to the Street", establishing a dialogue between the silhouettes of women deprived of liberty in the Valparaíso prison, Chile, and the pregnant women of the Hospital Maternity Center in Cuba.
"Silhouettes in the Street" is a dialogical somatic methodology that intervenes both in prison and on the street, using the silhouettes of incarcerated women and diverse individuals as a psychomagical act of liberation. This approach problematizes issues from the perspective of the body, acknowledging life trajectories and memory.
IMPACT
Arica and Parinacota Region
Arica
Pozo Almonte
Tarapacá Region
Iquique
Antofagasta Region
Antofagasta
Coquimbo Region
La Serena
Ovalle
Valparaíso Region
San Antonio
Valparaíso
Petorca
Quilpué
Casablanca
Quillota
San Felipe
Los Andes
Metropolitana Region
San Joaquín
San Miguel
Ex Penitentiary – LGBTQ+ Wing
O'Higgins Region
Rancagua
Lolol
We have extensive experience and strong national and international networks , with a continuous presence in the Valparaíso region, particularly in the municipalities of Valparaíso, Quillota, Los Andes, and San Antonio. I work in women's units and in the sexual and gender diversity pavilion.
+250
People make up our sisterly community .
+80
Children belonging to our community.
+2000
Actions in defense
and promotion of human rights.
+80
Transdisciplinary workshops
in prisons.
+1700
Participants in the workshops inside the prison .
+60
Psychosocial and legal actions and support .
+40
Collaborating artists.
+50
Organizations and institutions involved in social support, justice and human rights.
+7
International experiences.
+250
+80
+2000
+80
+1700
+60
+40
+50
+7
+30
10
+30
+20
+30
+25
+7
44 prisons with 663 participants
People make up our sisterly community .
Children belonging to our community.
Actions in defense and promotion of human rights.
Transdisciplinary workshops in prisons.
Participants in the workshops inside the prison .
Psychosocial and legal actions and support .
Collaborating artists.
Organizations and institutions involved in social support, justice and human rights.
International experiences.
Interventions in public space .
NIDO Encounters.
Collective transdisciplinary works created in prison.
Ongoing workshops outside of prison in the community.
Mediations and exhibitions of works inside and outside of prison.
Professional team with experience in the prison context.
Research created in Pájarx entre Púas.
Implementation of reading promotion workshops at the national level
tender no. 622844-7.
Permanent legal and psychosocial support.
+30
Interventions in public space .
10
NIDO Encounters.
+30
Collective transdisciplinary works created in prison.
+20
Ongoing workshops outside of prison in the community.
+30
Mediations and exhibitions of works inside and outside of prison.
+25
Professional team with experience in the prison context.
+7
Research created in Pájarx entre Púas.
44 prisons with 663 participants
Implementation of reading promotion workshops at the national level (tender)
No. 622844-7.
Psychosocial support
permanent legal status.
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES
USA - UN (2025)
Chile is participating in the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which promotes gender equality and women's rights. The CSW, established in 1946, assesses progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda, and in 2025 will focus on its contribution to sustainable development.
The meeting of the feminist anti-prison network in Ecuador, organized by collectives from various countries, used art as a tool for resistance and to make visible the realities of women in prison.
The meeting in Ecuador with the Latin American Feminist Anti-Prison Network provided a space for reflection on the region's punitive systems, especially their impact on incarcerated women and gender-diverse individuals. Through film screenings, workshops, and artistic exercises, prison realities were brought to light, and strategies for resistance and survival in the face of the structural violence of the prison system were shared.
LINKING TO CREATE ARTISTIC, CULTURAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERIENCES IN PRISONS
The Ana Project began with a workshop at the Rio de Janeiro Women's Prison, as part of a collaboration between the University of Rio de Janeiro and performing and audiovisual artists. It originated from a screenwriting workshop in Cuba and develops creative processes and screenwriting support, as well as artistic workshops with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women in Chile, Brazil, and Cuba.
X NATIONAL MEETING OF WRITING IN PRISON 2023
The 10th ENEC 2023, organized by the Department of Letters, the Prison Outreach Program, and the Paco Urondo Cultural Center, was held in Buenos Aires. This tenth edition focused on the power of language as a tool for cultural and political organization in the face of violence and hatred. The event included panels, talks, workshops, book presentations, and live music.
INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF ARTS IN PRISONS: DIALOGUES ON ARTISTIC EXPERIENCES WITH IMPRISONED WOMEN AND DISSIDENTS TO BUILD OTHER POSSIBLE WORLDS
"Art on the Run 2023 - International Meeting of Arts in Prisons" addressed the existence of prisons and their problems, highlighting the artistic experiences of incarcerated women and gender dissidents in Latin America. With the support of the Ibercultura fund, the project strengthened the feminist anti-prison network, organizing meetings and exhibitions across various territories of Abya Yala, focusing on gender and childhood issues in Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile.
SERIES OF CONVERSATIONS: REFLECTIONS AND STRATEGIES FOR A FEMINISM IN ABYA YALA
We participated in a series of talks on reintegration, punitivism, and art in prisons. The discussions covered the fallacy of reintegration and community-based reparation strategies, punitivism and its institutional challenges, and art in prisons, highlighting its transformative power. These meetings offered a profound reflection on new forms of justice and social rehabilitation in prison settings.
ONLINE CONVERSATION: FEMINIST ACTIVISM IN PRISONS: LATIN AMERICAN ALLIANCES IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC
We participated in a discussion with Latin American organizations about feminist activism in prisons, organized by Otros Saberes LASA Mexico. The experiences, challenges, and progress of women within the prison system were discussed, addressing issues of human rights, resistance, and the importance of feminist solidarity in incarceration contexts.
PRISON COUNCILS. ONLINE CONVERSATION
We were part of the organizing team and participated as speakers at the International Congress "Does Prison Have a Future After the Pandemic?". In addition, we moderated the seminar "Dialogues: Culture and Education" within the National Network of Prison Councils, contributing to discussions about the future of the prison system and its connection to culture and education in the post-pandemic context.
Creation and Meeting: A meeting where the feminist anti-prison network was created among Latin American organizations. Its objective is to confront institutional violence and promote gender justice.
In 2019, the First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting on Justice was held in Quito, Ecuador, which spurred the creation of the Feminist Anti-Prison Network. Composed of organizations from Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico, it seeks to expand its reach. The pandemic revealed the humanitarian crisis within the penal systems, reinforcing the need to coordinate collective efforts to promote justice with a gender perspective.
DANCE FESTIVAL, HAVANA OLD CITY IN MOTION: SILHOUETTES TO THE STREET TRILOGY
The 22nd International Festival of Dance in Urban Landscapes was held from March 29 to April 2, 2017, in Old Havana, with the participation of 15 countries and 40 groups. Organized by the Retazos Dance Theater Company and the Havana City Historian's Office, it included street dance performances in seven provinces and activities such as exhibitions, concerts, workshops, and conferences.