Chili wall painting

On their campus walkabouts, many former students wonder whatever has happened to the bright and colorful work of art that used to be on the wall of the Koopmans Building. This work represented Chilean repression after the coup by General Pinochet in 1973, and for those with a keen eye, there were also a few Tilburg elements to be descried: the towers of the Heike church and the Hasselt chapel and a factory facade.

Joined effort

The work was made in 1979 by the Chilean “painters’ brigade” called Ramona Parra, together with staff and students, and it was an expression of solidarity with “the repressed Chilean people.” These were highly politicized times, in which the College severed most of its ties with South-Africa due to apartheid and broke off its partnerships with universities in South-America and Eastern Europe. As late as 1993, Anton van Kalmthout, a Professor of Criminal Law and Immigration Law who took his political engagement very seriously indeed, still considered the wall painting “a reflection of universal idealism.”

Ramona Parra

The painters’ brigade was named after Ramona Parra, a young woman who had died in 1940 during a protest march in Santiago de Chile. The brigade initially made wall paintings in Chili as an affirmation of their political commitment and continued this tradition in the Netherlands, where several cities and towns (such as Amsterdam and Purmerend) provided wall space for Chilean refugees to display their political message.

A lot of this work has been lost, nor did the wall painting on campus prove to be resistant to the ravages of time. The work of art, much of it eaten away by vermin and in a deplorable state, was removed in 2007. The University still owns another of the brigade’s works: this used to be in the hall of the former theological faculty and has now been moved to the Dante Building, in the international environment of the University College.