Designers e Artistas: A Autoria Feminina na Coleção de Cartazes da Cooperativa Árvore

Abstract

The ‘Cooperativa Árvore’ has existed in Porto since 1963. It continues to be an important hub for artistic and cultural dissemination, as well as an active centre for political discussion, as it was before and after the Portuguese democratic revolution.

As a result of his plural agenda and the diligence of his collaborators, a collection of posters was built up, but its extent and spectrum were unknown. The research is dedicated to the physical and digital preservation of this graphic collection, its cataloguing, characterisation, and interpretation from a design perspective, for future public dissemination. The aim is to overcome the identified risk of the ensemble losing its unity, as well as its printed and latent memory, due to the lack of documentary and scientific treatment. To this purpose, methodologies have been explored which, namely through the handling of the archive, a database, and interviews, also contribute to the necessary feminist revision of the history of graphic design in Portugal.

While filling in the database created, the authorships present in the collection were identified. Of the 3.583 different posters in the collection, only around 3% have recognised female authorship. This article reveals all their names, even those that are not known to the public or concretely identifiable, and the representativeness of their graphic work in this collection.

The paper highlights the eleven posters (and one maquette) by six Portuguese designers and/or artists that are both dated to the period in focus at the conference and explicitly related to the Cooperative. These artefacts are presented, as well as contextualised and interpreted, whenever possible, with the contribution of the authors’ personal testimonies about their practical activities and professional contexts, both in the field of design and art, highlighting their links to ‘Árvore’.