Aboard Diary. Interior cartography.
Aboard Diary. Cartografía interior is based on a unique testimony: a collective diary written during the crossing of the Winnipeg, which set sail from Pauillac (France) on 4 August 1939 with around 2,500 Republican refugees fleeing Franco’s reprisals after the Civil War. The ship arrived in Valparaiso, Chile, on 3 September, one month later. From the fourth day of the crossing onwards, these people wrote a daily handmade newspaper of three or four sheets of onion paper, which was displayed every day on the ship’s bulletin boards. More than 85 years later, facsimiles of that diary have been published almost in their entirety.
The exhibition is inspired by this unique document and the experience of exile. Cecilia Zabaleta, granddaughter of one of the passengers of the Winnipeg, has developed an artistic proposal that interweaves personal and collective memory through a selection of original facsimiles of the diary, works in mixed media, collage and oil, cartographic interventions, human silhouettes, fragmented papers that evoke fragility, two audiovisual pieces and a red yarn, a visual and symbolic element, human silhouettes, fragmented papers that evoke fragility, two audiovisual pieces and a red yarn, a central visual and symbolic element that represents the connection between memories, resistance and the political and ideological convictions of those who left on the Winnipeg. Her work explores themes of uprootedness, fragility, resistance and reconstruction.
The exhibition offers an intimate and political look at the Republican exile in Chile, underlining the strength of memory in the face of oblivion and inviting the public to approach a story that, although distant in time, is still profoundly relevant.
Zabaleta had been working for years with the memories of exile when he came across the research of the historian Josu Chueca on the diaries of the Winnipeg. From there, he began a meticulous process of revision of the original material – in many cases very damaged – and its transcriptions, which gave rise to the exhibition project that opens today.
Onboard Diary. Cartografía interior arrives at Itsasmuseum Bilbao after having been exhibited in Valparaíso (2024) and Santiago de Chile (2024 and 2025). Its itinerancy symbolically connects the host country with the place of origin of those who undertook a forced journey, full of uncertainty.
Open from 8 July, in Carol Iglesias Espazioa of Itsasmuseum Bilbao, the exhibition can be visited with free admission until 7 November 2025.
The book
In the publication Los 2000 del Winnipeg. Diario de a bordo the historian Josu Chueca Intxusta collects 26 of the 23 facsimiles.
Published by Intxorta 1937 Kultur Elkartea, it has the support of Gogora, the Institute of Memory, Coexistence and Human Rights of the Basque Government.
Tickets
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