Singer-songwriter, poet and passionate, restless painter, Violeta Parra was a fundamental figure for the recovery and dissemination of Chilean folk music and folklore. In addition to singing and musical composition she has dedicated herself to painting, sculpture, embroidery and tapestry weaving she considered as “painted songs”; activity that culminates in 1964 in an important solo exhibition at the Louvre in Paris. Afflicted by a depression that inspires her most painful and delicate songs – including Gracias a la vida, considered her ‘testament’ – she took her own life in 1967 in Carpa de la Reina, a centre of folk culture that will represent her greatest dream and failure at the same time.
