Coordinadora Femfest was founded in 2004 by a group of women in their late teens to early thirties who were active in the punk/underground music scene in Santiago, Chile. Their dream was to create a music event made by and for women which provided a safe space away from the harassment, misogyny, and homophobia they often faced when performing in other settings. The event they first organized, Festival Femfest, is now the longest running feminist music festival in Chile. Over the fifteen years since the group was formed, their countercultural performances and intersectional coalition-building have become a cornerstone of radical feminist organizing in and around Santiago. Coordinadora Femfest members describe themselves as working from “under.” This refers to the peripheral spaces, marginalized communities, and non-institutional settings where they develop their musical and countercultural performances. I describe these performances as “sounding from under,” a process of making audible the lived reality of poor places, colonized places, forgotten places, and other realms that constitute the “under” parts of a society still grappling with the political, economic, and cultural effects of a U.S.-backed military dictatorship that lasted from 1973-1990.

I first met Femfest members in 2016, and in 2018 I became deeply involved with the organization during my dissertation fieldwork. Along with attending meetings and helping put on their musical and community events throughout the year, I spent much of my time with Femfest as the group’s photographer. This allowed me to become deeply attuned to capturing moments of interpersonal connection, and to translate the feeling and intensity of “sounding from under” into images. The photos I share in this gallery provide a glimpse into Coordinadora Femfest’s history, their political and artistic collaboration with drag performer Hija de Perra, and some of the key events and projects I experienced with them, including the 2018 Festival Femfest. The story of Coordinadora Femfest reveals how “sounding from under” allows women and gender minorities to imagine and practice the anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist world they want to live in.

In 2003, Manuela Valle of the band Rompehogares suggested to her bandmates Antonia Piña and Maria Paz Reese that they begin reaching out to other women musicians to create their own festival. Through networking at shows and on the nascent social media platform Fotolog, they met Carolina Ozaus of the band Vaso de Leche and Barbarella Finsterbusch of the band Lilits. After holding a meeting with these groups as well as the bands Las Jonathan, Golden Baba, Flores Marchitas, and She Devils, Coordinadora Femfest was born, and their first festival was hosted in 2004. Carolina, Antonia, Paz, and Barbarella have remained active with the group ever since, and continue to mentor and grow younger generations of organizers..

Hija de Perra (Daughter of a Bitch), was a renowned drag artist and intellectual. Her performances, known for their shocking perversity, enacted a sexual dissidence which critiqued the violence of heteronormative gender roles. Her celebration of queer sexuality and erotic pleasure directly rejected the sexual repression which had permeated Chilean society during the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1990. It was Hija de Perra’s fearless desire to create safe spaces for the outcast that drew Femfest members to her in the early years. Initially, Femfest organizers were concerned primarily with getting women on stages. Hija de Perra took their vision and helped them realize that it was not just sexism, but also capitalist systems of power that relegated women to passive, domestic roles, and demonized non-heteronormative lifestyles. Tragically, Hija de Perra passed away in 2014, but her transfeminist politics and sexually dissident performance practices continue to influence the organization. 

Screen Printing has been considered a masculine art form due to the intense physical labor which goes into constructing the frame, screen, and manipulating heavy squeegees to apply paint. Students in Femfest’s Screen Printing class were tasked with creating all of the festival posters which would be used to promote the event. For days participants worked into the night hanging wet posters and hoping they would be dry by morning. It was a draining process, but also invigorating in the tactile feeling of making a movement come together with our hands.