LasTesis Collective

The LasTesis Collective is a feminist artistic group performing in Chile. Their art seeks to hold into account state institutions that perpetuates violence, and became widely known in 2019 through the song “A Rapist in Your Path”, which resonated with women’s movements in the whole world and soon became an anthem for women’s rights.

In May 2020, LasTesis published a new song alongside the Russian feminist group Pussy Riot. The song denounces police violence against women in Latin America, reflecting on the raise of domestic violence levels since the start of the pandemic and the economic inequalities that are contributing to the deaths of thousands of workers who cannot access adequate living and health care.

As a result of their artistic manifestation, the four members of LasTesis are currently being investigated due to reports of intimidation against the police – filed and investigated by Chilean police officers who work in the region where they live.

The LasTesis Collective stated: “They want us in the kitchen, confined to the tedium of the domestic, to the private sphere, silenced, invisible. They want to make us return to that place of subordination to which we have historically been confined”, adding that “This only demonstrates the systematic abuse of power by this institution, equating poetry with the true violence which they perpetrate, denying the space to metaphors, art, activism and the legitimate denounce that since October the people have been shouting everywhere”.