Abstract
This article examines the visual and socio-political subversion of Marian iconography in contemporary Chilean street art, focusing specifically on the post-dictatorship era and the aftermath of the 2019 social uprising (Estallido Social). By applying a queer iconographic framework, this study analyzes how activist-artists resignify the Virgin Mary—traditionally a symbol of maternal submission, national purity, and conservative Catholic hegemony in Chile—into a site of queer resistance, feminist protest, and bodily autonomy. Through an iconographic analysis of three prominent street art interventions in Santiago and Valparaíso, we demonstrate how the subversion of sacred imagery dismantles the conservative gender roles historically enforced by the Pinochet dictatorship and sustained by neoliberal state institutions. Ultimately, this research argues that "queering the sacred" serves as a powerful visual strategy that decolonizes public space, reclaims spiritual agency for marginalized bodies, and challenges the historical alliance between the Church, the military state, and patriarchal capitalism in Chile.
