Violeta Parra's story captivated Karen Kerschen when she was caught in the Chilean coup d'etat, September 11, 1973, and forced to flee.
Her research for Violeta Parra: By the Whim of the Wind, sprung from her work in the Latin American human rights movement. Her Chilean photographs of living conditions among the poor, of sabotage by CIA-funded interest groups, of the idealism of workers and students were disseminated by Amnesty International and provided evidence for US Congressional committees. She recorded testimony of torture victims, helped produce a television news documentary and exhibit arpilleras, pictorial tapestries sewn by women whose family members were imprisoned or desaparecidos by the dictatorship. She spoke in classrooms and sang with La Peña Cultural Center's chorus.
"I discovered that Violeta's story far exceeded her legend. She wrote eloquently about traditional customs, about Chile's rigid class system, about life of the urban poor. She was the first Latin American to have a solo exhibit at the Louvre. Though unschooled, she composed classical etudes for guitar. As a woman, she suffered deeply her personal choices and achievements. In broader terms, the cultural fragments Violeta cherished of her own background are mirrored in all societies, and merit preserving as beacons into humanity's past."
A New Yorker by birth, Kerschen's lifelong interest in the threads of folkloric culture date back to childhood stories of her family's emigration from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to NYC's Lower East Side. Ironically, as a girl, she rebelled against family pressures to preserve tradition in a rapidly modernizing society. And yet it was this preservation of tradition and her vivid depictions of rustic life confronting the pressures of a modernizing society that so fascinated her about Violeta Parra.
Kerschen has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, in NYC. In the intervening years, she has pursued an eclectic path, from photojournalist to technical writer, and until recently, in fine and applied art. She lives with her husband in rural northern New Mexico.