Paula GUERRA, KISMIF Convenor, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Sociology, University of Porto, CITCEM, CEGOT, Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, KISMIF Project Coordinator, Portugal.
Pedro QUINTELA, Faculty of Economics, Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, KISMIF Project, Portugal.
Nuno Faria, Artistic Director of Porto City Museum, Portugal.
Matthew WORLEY, University of Reading, Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Chan ge Network, United Kingdom.
Tony DRYTON, Ripped & Torn, United Kingdom.
Samuel ETIENE, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université PSL, Laboratoire CHArt, France.
Price: free.
08 July | Gabinete Gráfico, Museu da Cidade do Porto [Graphic Office, Porto City Museum]
Description: The 1980s represent a chronological milestone of great changes for a Portugal that has just emerged from the revolutionary period and is in a phase of democratic stabilisation, from which we highlight: a notable expansion of purchasing power and of the middle classes; the process of accession to the European Economic Community, which resulted in an influx of community investments, the breaking of a certain international isolation and the end of customs barriers; a strong secularisation process, even if marked by accentuated regional differences; an increase in average schooling and reinforcement of mass culture, among other indicators. Particularly important was the process of integration
in the public cultural sphere of several layers of the population such as women and young people. In relation to the latter, we can even speak of a search for ‘the right to difference’, as António Sérgio, a remarkable Portuguese radio broadcaster, put it. It is precisely that search for difference, in the youngest (and not only) that will significantly change the cultural panorama of Porto in the 1980s. This exhibition is based on the visibility of a set of emerging artistic movements and experiments, which had a strongly independent character in the city of Porto in the 1980s and whose ‘echoes’ extend and, in some way, reverberate to the present day, in multiple and varied forms. One of the best examples of artistic, musical and youth experimentation – based on a do-it-yourself ethos – were, without any doubt, the fanzines: subjects and objects of incidence of this exhibition.
