Jordi Lloret
(return to In the Heart of Chile page)

In this clip, Jordi talks about opening up Matucana 19, Chile's first underground club
devoted to poetry, art, music, recreation, and peaceful resistance against the dictatorship.

Jordi Lloret was born in Chile and lived there until one year after the military strike of
1973 when he was arrested and detained by the Pinochet regime, after which he was
sent into exile. He lived in Barcelona for 10 years, and there he wrote books of poetry
and joined art movements. In 1986 he moved back to Chile and started a non-violent
resistance movement through art, founding the Garage Internacional, Matucana 19.
Now an almost mystical place, it was a space where all forms of art had a place to
express themselves in Santiago's last years of dictatorship. Murals, music, video,
theater, installations and performances, it was considered the center of new
tendencies by a Spanish TV program.

Jordi has edited several books, such as Soñándote, Alaridos de un Náufrago,
Deslecturas, Solotoñemos, Textos Aticos, Ladridos, and Garage Internacional,
among others. Together with his friends who are also artists, he developed video series'
such as Adios a Tarzán with Enrique Lihn, and La Nada with the UPA musicians. He was
also involved in musical projects such as La Ducha and AkuiPiam, a Mapuche project.
Jordi has received several prizes and awards, and has also developed his writing and
editorials in several magazines, newspapers, radio broadcasts and TV programs.

Now he is writing for La Nación , a (Chilean) national newspaper, and is developing
workshops and a TV program around poetry.