graphic city

for about a year, in partnership with elaine ramos, we researched the intersection of ‘graphic design’ and ‘city’, resulting in co-curating the exhibition ‘graphic city’, which brought together forty projects by artists and designers from different regions of brazil, addressing themes related to the daily lives of our cities.

in this research, the boundaries of what is or is not design was put in the background, opening the way for all types of interdisciplinary influences. more than finding answers, the focus was on the questions raised, on the processes behind the works and, above all, on the strategies which had as a common denominator the insightful use of graphic instrumentality to deal with the collective.

drawing on the fertile field that is the city, our desire with this project was to expand the repertoire of possibilities both in the use of the design lexicon and in the professional practices. the set of works on display should encourage designers to act in a more propositional way, detached from assignment, including research, reflection, and political action. the emphasis was on visual communication that favours exchange and dialogue, since urban space is the place of heterogeneity, of encounter and difference, of conflict and negotiation.

(exhibition photos by nelson kon and exhibition design by metro arquitetos associados)