Cross-Border Solidarity in Coal Communities
As part of its work advancing worker-centered energy transitions, the Climate Jobs Institute is partnering with Magdalena Novoa, Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and the Krannert Art Museum to bring coal-impacted communities from Chile and Illinois into dialogue.
Memorias de la Mujer Lotina: Arpilleras, Women, and Coal in Chile
Exhibition: February 26 – September 5, 2026
Main Level | Contemporary Gallery
Krannert Art Museum, 500 E Peabody Dr, Champaign, IL 61820
Weeklong Residency: March 30 – April 5, 2026
University of Illinois Campus
See Public Events below
This exhibition and residency extend CJI’s commitment to documenting and strengthening coal communities through the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project. By connecting grassroots leaders from Chile’s Biobío coal basin with workers and families in Illinois, the program demonstrates what international solidarity can look like in practice.
Why this Matters
Coal communities across the globe face shared challenges: economic displacement, environmental harm, and the struggle to preserve cultural identity as industries decline.
In Illinois, the Climate Jobs Institute is working with workers, families, and local leaders to ensure that transition policies are informed by lived experience. In Lota, Chile, women have already experienced the transition away from coal, using collective art-making and organizing as a resource for social and economic development. Their art and activism has influenced urban planning, heritage preservation, and public recognition of their community’s history.
This collaboration creates space for shared learning grounded in working-class experience — centering women’s leadership, cultural memory, and community-driven economic renewal.
The Exhibition
This exhibition showcases a long-term collaboration between a community organization in Chile—Mesa Ciudadana de Patrimonio, Cultura y Turismo de Lota—and scholar Magdalena Novoa. The project uses the Chilean textile craft called arpillera made by women in Chile’s southern coal basin region of Biobio to create counter-narratives of their cities’ urban history from women’s perspectives and to influence historical preservation planning and policy.
Arpilleras are a radical feminist practice of storytelling and protest that became prominent in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990) when women used them to denounce their relatives’ disappearances and political violence. Today, women experiencing marginalization continue to create arpilleras depicting poverty, gender violence, and survival strategies. The arpilleras have colorful stitching, applique, and embroidery; and they are created in group sessions where women share experiences, talking as they sew.
Featuring more than a dozen textiles and documentary footage contextualizing their significance, the exhibition will include a monumental sixteen-foot-long arpillera representing the city of Lota, made by fifty-two women aged 14 to 92. With Lota’s nomination to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites, this work has helped influence decisions about planning and preservation in their city by making visible how official heritage narratives have concealed women’s experiences of place.
During this collaborative and performative cartography of memory, the women embarked on a process of co-producing knowledge in an accessible format for participants and the general public, facilitating a process of advocacy by participants themselves.
Guided tours are available upon request. Contact Magdalena Novoa mnovoa@illinois.edu.
Curated by Magdalena Novoa, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, with Amy L. Powell, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Allyson Purpura, Senior Curator and Curator of Global African Art
Weeklong Residency: Solidarity in Practice
In conjunction with the exhibition, all 12 members of Mesa Ciudadana de Patrimonio de Lota will participate in a weeklong residency at the University of Illinois.
During their visit, the Chilean artists and labor activists will:
- Lead campus and community workshops
- Engage directly with Illinois coal workers and families
- Participate in cross-border dialogues on economic transition
- Share organizing strategies rooted in lived experience
The residency is closely connected to the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project. By bringing together coal-impacted communities from Chile and the United States, the program strengthens a growing international network committed to worker-led just transitions beyond coal.
Public Events
Talking Across Borders: Women Labor Activists from Chile and Illinois in Conversation
Tuesday, March 31
5:00–6:00 p.m. – Private Exhibition Viewing at KAM Main Level | Contemporary Gallery
6:00–7:30 p.m. – Moderated Conversation & Light Dinner at Art & Design Building, Room 331
Location: Krannert Art Museum 500 E Peabody Dr, Champaign, IL 61820
Art & Design Building 408 E Peabody Dr, Champaign, IL 61820
Hosted by the East Central Illinois Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) in partnership with the Labor Education Program, the Climate Jobs Institute, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Krannert Art Museum, and the School of Art and Design, this event brings women labor leaders from Chile and Illinois into dialogue about organizing, coal community transitions, and cross-border solidarity.
You can learn more about accessibility at Krannert Art Museum here.
Life After Coal: Envisioning Just Transitions Across Borders
Friday, April 3
Guided Exhibition Tour – 10:30 a.m., KAM Main Level | Contemporary Gallery
Panel Discussion – 12:00 p.m., Lower Level | Auditorium (KAM 62)
Opening Reception to follow. Light refreshments provided.
Location: Krannert Art Museum, 500 E Peabody Dr, Champaign, IL 61820
Presented by the Climate Jobs Institute, the Department of Urban & Regional Planning, and Krannert Art Museum, this public panel convenes grassroots activists, community leaders, and scholars from Illinois, Ohio, and Chile’s Biobío region to examine how coal communities are shaping post-industrial futures.
Panelists include:
- Emily Guske (Climate Jobs Institute)
- Todd Lee (Vermilion County)
- Jordan Woodward (Humanities Research Institute)
- Kellye Blosser (Little Cities of Black Diamonds)
- Elizabeth Aguilera (Mesa Ciudadana de Lota)
- Magdalena Novoa (Department of Urban and Regional Planning)
The conversation will explore how cultural heritage, collective memory, and place-based knowledge serve as tools for economic renewal, political mobilization, and energy transition justice.
You can learn more about accessibility at Krannert Art Museum here.
Exhibition Support
This exhibition is made possible with support from the Climate Jobs Institute; the Office for Arts Integration; the Leonard F. Heumann Fund; the Department of Urban and Regional Planning; the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity; the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; the Latin American and Caribbean Cities Collective; the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District; and the National Fund for Cultural and Arts Development of Chile.
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
Gallery: A Look at the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project
Banner photo credit: A completed arpillera on display. 2020. Photo courtesy of Magdalena Novoa.