Art is a force for preserving the status quo, but it is also often used in the opposite way - as a vehicle of protest, resistance, and even revolution. A number of artists have attempted, through their own artistic media, to raise the consciousness of their oppressed countrymen and to bring about changes in social and political structures. For example, Marjorie Agosin documented the case of the Chilean arpilleristas, who told the story of political oppression on scraps of cloth. These courageous artists were considered such a threat to the established government that they were eventually banned in their own country. In Chile, during the Augusto Pinochet regime, local artists painted murals under the cover of night depicting scenes of government oppression, only to have them removed by the military police the next morning.