Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The village of Trasalba in Ourense is a fundamental space to understand the work of Ramón Otero Pedrayo. In that place wrote and imagined some of his most important works. The toponym and the space are recreated in novels, essays and poems

This article aims to analyze a social project developed by a multidisciplinary group based on the theories of the emerging field of Design Anthropology (DA). Supported by a co-creation approach, the Parada do Sol project was facilitated by professionals from the Tecnopuc Creativity Laboratory (Tecnopuc Crialab) based on Participatory Design processes. The project aimed to support the community in its desire to initiate a process of social transformation through technology using renewable energy. The main objective of this article is to identify the benefits of using design processes to take advantage of local potential and meet the challenges brought by the real needs of the territory. The main contributions observed were that co-creation proved to be an important approach within the project, leading to the identification of a more relevant intervention for the community; for non-designer participants, this work model allowed the materialization of important solutions for the community, with the idealization of a sustainable bus stop.

A narrative practice instrument, called a guide, was investigated and created in order to find new ways of creating knowledge in academia. It condenses different subjects, such as the body, identity, place and feminism. A narrative exercise was created with different instruments, such as body maps, music and photography. The exercise made possible the creation of sense and meaning of ideas and concepts around the subjects addressed, which emerged from the narration of the stories and life experiences. This investigation in anthropology was supported by research through Design, looking to find new channels into knowledge within academia. The result shows that the new narrative practices and the narrative exercise are channels into knowledge that lead us to understand it as an embodied experience.

Como en cualquier país, el turismo representa una fuente de riqueza, no solo desde un punto de vista cultural, pero también desde un punto de vista comercial. En el contexto portugués, la difusión de esta actividad se llevó a cabo en varios medios, y en los años 60, el cartel todavía se consideraba como el medio de elección para comunicar lo que mejor se tenía que ofrecer turísticamente. En este sentido, y para una comprensión más profunda de su dimensión cultural y comercial, se formularon las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuáles son las estrategias para la creación de la(s) imagen(es) turística(s) sobre Portugal? ¿Qué retórica visual ha promovido el país, a nivel nacional e internacional? Para responder a estas preguntas, el artículo presenta un conjunto de tres docenas de carteles, que ilustran las intenciones del Estado Novo (1933-1974) en la promoción del país, así como el análisis de estos artefactos a través de las decisiones de derechos de autor en la construcción de narrativas visuales que, en ese momento, estaban en línea con el programa delineado por el poder político actual. Al mismo tiempo, se establece una relación con las tecnologías utilizadas en la construcción de una iconografía (dibujo y fotografía) y también con las tecnologías de impresión, así como se presta atención al número de copias impresas de cada cartel, con el fin de conocer su representatividad en la esfera pública. Además de los planteamientos presentados, el artículo se centra en las ‘imágenes silenciosas’ presentes en los carteles, estableciendo vínculos con la dimensión práctica del diseño, buscando revelar narrativas centradas en la visualidad comunicacional de este período, cuya retórica comunicacional se mezclaba entre la nostalgia y una supuesta modernidad. En consecuencia, se pretende contribuir a profundizar el conocimiento sobre la producción de carteles portugueses, a nivel de diseño y su historia, que a su vez ‘encarnan’ y ‘traducen’ la cultura visual de una época, funcionando también como catalizadores y cristalizadores de una memoria activa.

Doing designanthropology is, in itself, a narrative process. Using "design things" with crafts- women from the Madesol group, we construct narratives about their trades, their life and work strategies, in the face of the difficulties of positioning themselves in a market that constantly makes them invisible. In designanthropology, the commitment to the context and the available materials proposes a reflexive attitude between criticism and experimentation, through the creation and experience of concrete situations, characterised here as the focus of the research. The reflections presented are the result of an ongoing research project, in which the boundaries of the creative process were extended beyond the domain of the designers involved. The results, which are narratives constructed from the relationships with the craftswomen, are characterised in this field of designanthropology as creative and imaginative practice, as life forces in the face of the oppression that plagues the vulnerable populations with whom we research.

The Design-anthropology relationship requires the clarification of three essential issues. First, that Design must be placed in the world of work as a necessary and legitimate profession in the construction of artificial life; second, in dialogue with the value of ethnography and qualitative methodologies in the world of social research; third, the value of cultural studies to understand the historical subjects toward which Design is oriented. The space-time coordinates coincide to collect safe, rigorous, and valid information on the potential improvement of processes, systems, and objects in use by communities, which we can call a convergent methodological need. Our thesis is that, although the last two fields of work have been widely developed in the social sciences, professional Design has insufficiently incorporated them in their innovation and creative processes. We propose and discuss that the understanding of anthropology within the limits of Design should lead to a metamorphosis of a key category in the field of Design: the user. This reflection has implications on three levels: subjects, methods, and Design positioning.

The present research reports a graphic immersion in the rock art sites of Catimbau (Pernambuco, Brazil). A mapping of the symbols and intersubjective assimilations awakens when observing the rock art as the ancestral device, in dialogue with the indigenous people of the region. The set of graphs present in the surroundings of the Catimbau National Park comprises several cultural manifestations, where symbols expressing rituals, daily and sacred artifacts, the beings of the caatinga, and community articulations are identified. The intention is to present the graphic symbols related to the intersubjectivities and appropriations in the community’s symbolism. The investigation starts from the Kapinawá indigenous territory, allying itself with a group of subjects of the ethnic group for the recognition and updated production, a resumption of the graphic codes. In understanding their symbolic system, one must consider their history of resistance and understand the cultural emergences of the Northeastern Indigenous connected to the process of ethnic self-identification. An interdisciplinary investigation oriented on the ethnographic method of Anthropology focused on the visual expressions of art and mediated by the project perspective of Design.

In this article, I investigate how, from 2015 onward, a boom in Pilagá artisanal production began, in hand with the trend in interior decoration called Boho. As I show in depth, this trend is characterizedby the use of natural raw materials and many basketry elements. From this perspective, I study the commercialization of the pieces made with carandillo fiber by the Pilagá, framed by current trends, and as part of the circuit for the consumption of Design objects. In addition, I study how multiple interior Design businesses develop a selective process to promote craftsmanship in terms of authenticity and unique original Design pieces; but simultaneously makes the craftswoman invisible by choosing to enhance partial assets, valuing the object as a Design piece. Analysis is based on a qualitative methodological development that combines techniques that are typical of ethnography (field work in indigenous communities and interviews with artisan women and intermediaries) with discourse analysis and virtual ethnography. In summary, I investigate how handcrafts are constructed as Design objects by a strategic selection of certain characteristics and hiding others.

In the historiography of contemporary Mexican design there are some characters and figures that embody and fully represent the idea of modernity in visual communication, one of those profiles is undoubtedly that of Vicente Rojo (March 15, 1932, Barcelona, Spain-March 17, 2021, Mexico City). In this article I will offer information on the main graphic and editorial projects in which he participated, based on the material analysis of the editions in the National Library of Mexico, as well as interviews I conducted with him during his lifetime, focusing on the visual characteristics of his work. Some of the questions I will try to answer are: where does Rojo's modernity lie, how is the discourse and the concept that he is a pioneer of modern Mexican design structured? Considering the above, after reading this article the reader will be able to understand the role and impact that Rojo has had in the configuration of the concept of modern Mexican design.

We live in a time of catastrophe marked by an environmental crisis that threatens the possibility of many lives on Earth, including humans. Such impacts caused by human interference on the planet indicate the emergence of a new geological epoch, called the Anthropocene. In this paper I seek to understand waste, one of the actors interfering with global warming, not as a problem, but as a common good. From the perspective of the patched Anthropocene, proposed by Anna Tsing in Feral Atlas, I try to follow the traces of rubbish pollution and the wild events that emerge from this entity, such as the practice of cartonera. The ferocity of cartonera lies not in its resistance to the domestication imposed by the laws of the publishing market, but, above all, in the alliance that is built between the different actors involved in the symbiotic process of making-with that makes possible the creation of new territories and new ways of designing and living.