Join the Centre for Design History for another installment of our IOTA II seminar series. In this session, Isabel Duarte (University of Brighton) and Nuno Coelho (University of Coimbra) will share their respective research on Design as Resistance and Reflection: Feminist and Political Narratives in Portuguese Visual Culture

Design as Resistance and Reflection: Feminist and Political Narratives in Portuguese Visual Culture
Isabel Duarte and Nuno Coelho

4 June, 10:30-11:45am, Cockcroft 808

All welcome, no need to book. We are exploring an online element to this event. Please contact centrefordesignhistory@brighton.ac.uk to register your interest.

First page of “A Voz das Camaradas,” n048, May 1967. Credit: Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril, Universidade de Coimbra

Women’s voice: Errata to Portuguese graphic design history through feminist objects of dissent

Isabel Duarte
University of Brighton, Centre for Design History

Why are women absent from design history? Why have women who were notable during their careers been forgotten? What mechanisms have permitted these omissions?
Although slowly, Portugal has been improving its general lack of literature on graphic design history, but despite the few books beginning to be published, only very few women are given any focus. While some authors, such as Teal Triggs, have argued that it is important to add women designers to an otherwise very male canon because there is value in creating female frames of reference, other feminist authors, such as Linda Nochlin and Cheryl Buckley, have argued that simply writing accounts of women designers or artists is not in itself a feminist act, nor is it enough to address the lack of women in the canon. Giselda Pollock and Martha Scotford have urged us that the work lies in dismantling the canon.

In this presentation, Isabel Duarte will offer a brief overview of her doctoral research, its objectives and goals, focusing on the presentation of one of the case studies, namely the periodical ‘A Voz das Camaradas: das casas dos partidos’ [The Voice of Women Comrades: from the party’s houses], an object of political resistance created by Margarida Tengarrinha while living in clandestinity during the 48-year long dictatorship (1926–74). Directly fighting the lack of agency of women in clandestinity, who were mostly left out of other party reading materials, this bulletin is an object of feminism. This study aims to contribute to dismantling the canon by suggesting feminist periodicals as objects of interest for design history due to their intrinsic value to the history of women in Portugal. In this presentation, Isabel Duarte will explain how looking outside the archives and circles of design was an important step to encounter this object, and will expose how the bulletin emerged, how its physicality derived from the resources in which it was created, and how this can disrupt design history.

Isabel Duarte is a design researcher and a PhD candidate at the University of Brighton with a grant from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Her current research engages with the intersections of graphic design history and feminist methodologies with a focus on Portuguese graphic design history. In 2021, she co-curated the exhibition Errata: a feminist revision of Portuguese graphic design history, which brought the project to a general audience. She also publishes the Errata podcast, documenting and reflecting on issues facing women designers in Portugal through conversations with thinkers, curators, historians, and designers about their experiences and work. In 2023, co-curated etceteras: feminist festival of design and publishing in Porto. As a graphic designer, Isabel has worked mainly in editorial projects, such as ArtReview and ArtReview Asia, Eye Magazine, amongst other projects.
More info: duarteisabel.com

Can a country’s history be told through its brands? Unpacking Portugal’s 20th-century history through packaging design

Nuno Coelho
University of Coimbra, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20), Department of Architecture (DARQ)

Verbal brands (the choice of brand names), logotypes, product packaging and labels, and advertisements – elements that may seem neutral and innocuous – serve, and have always served, economic and political interests by conveying messages of a cultural, emotional, and psychological nature. Due to their ubiquity, inserting themselves into the private sphere of consumers – their homes – branded products carry visual messages that reflect historical processes of ideas and discourse. Because of their often bold and telegraphic visual nature, images are easily absorbed by the public, influencing the formation and normalisation of certain political and ideological discourses. In this sense, design is naturally seen as a cultural product, since social practices generate images, images generate social practices. Products, and the images and words associated with them, aim to respond to the needs and desires of consumers, who, in turn, see themselves reflected or represented in this particular visual and graphic universe. Through their packaging and the elements contained within, brands of everyday consumer products reflect the successive transformations of a given society, revealing political, social, cultural, and artistic dynamics.

This becomes more evident in countries that have experienced troubled times in their recent history. Throughout the 20th-century, one of the most turbulent in its history, Portugal underwent five quite distinct political regimes: Constitutional Monarchy (until 1910); First Republic (1910-1926); Military Dictatorship (1926-1933); the authoritarian Estado Novo regime (1933-1974); and, finally, the Second Republic (from 1974), which brought democracy to the country. Long before the 1974 revolution that overthrew one of the longest-lived authoritarian regimes in modern Europe and the country’s accession to the European Union in 1986, Portugal imposed economic protectionism and suffered from international political isolation. During this regime, Portuguese brands did not feel an urgent need to update themselves, which meant that many of these brands and their products had a long shelf life, many of them enduring to the present day. So, can a country’s history be told through its brands? In this presentation-essay, a tentative history of the country will be formulated through images of everyday consumer products from various Portuguese brands.

Nuno Coelho (he/him) is a Porto-based Portuguese communication designer, artist, and curator. He is an Assistant Professor in Design and Multimedia at the Department of Architecture (DARQ) of the University of Coimbra and an Integrated Researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20) of the same university. He holds a PhD in Contemporary Art from the University of Coimbra, a master’s in Design and Graphic Production from the University of Barcelona, and a degree in Communication Design and Graphic Art from the University of Porto. As an independent designer, he has worked for individuals and organisations predominantly in Portugal, as well as in other countries, mainly for culture-related clients. He has developed self-initiated research-based projects on the intersection between design and art on social and political issues. As a design researcher, he is interested in history, material culture, heritage, digital humanities, science communication, and visual semiotics and representation. He has been working on topics related to identity and memory by exploring the politics of image-making and the archives of historic Portuguese brands and institutions. He has curated and coordinated exhibitions and public programs. He has two books published and has edited three others. His various activities (organisation and participation in exhibitions, holding talks and conferences, conducting workshops, fieldwork, work visits, among others) have been conducted internationally in more than 40 countries worldwide.
More info: nunocoelho.net

What is IOTA II?

IOTA II – IOTA stands for Image, Object, Text, Analysis, and was the title of a seminar series established by dear former colleagues Louise Purbrick and Jill Seddon. IOTA II aims to resurrect the inclusive nature of the original IOTA, bringing together students, colleagues and all interested parties from beyond the university to consider the visual and material world from a wide range of perspectives. It is a space for work-in-progress to be shared and nurtured, and for our research to be celebrated.