Design in Latin America
Dialogue with Ana Elenea Mallet
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Independent curator, cultural manager, researcher and distinguished professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Her specialization is modern and contemporary design, she curated the first MoMA exhibition dedicated to modern design of Latin America.
Q: What characterizes design in Latin America?
Design in Latin America was institutionalized as a formal, academic, and professional discipline only 70 years ago, with the emergence of the first design degrees and technical careers. So, I believe there is a historical, regional, and disciplinary reflection that we have not assimilated, and that we still need to do. There have been criticisms that design in Latin America is derivative, meaning that it always looks towards the north or the west, trying to copy models and tropicalize them. But in reality, Latin American design is still subject to the tensions of modernity, and I think we need to understand that historical perspective. Therefore, I believe there is a very important part in which we must create, forge, and promote a design culture in Latin America that is anchored in history, that truly dissects it, and understands it, in order to analyze it in light of present-day reflections.
I like to talk about "designs," including fashion, jewelry, textiles, and crafts. In Latin America, we find a deep-rooted connection to craftsmanship, manual creation, and the use of traditional materials. "Design" and "craftsmanship" share a genealogy, and their subsequent divergence seems more political than social or cultural. For example, a clay pot from the Tlacolula market remains a design and is used to cook beans, but at other times, it is considered a craft with a different connotation. In cases like this, I always go back to what Clara Porset said in 1952 that if we manage to combine industry, design and craftsmanship, we will arrive at a design that is truly our own.
There is also a search for identity anchored in the national, and I believe all our Latin American countries are similar in this respect. I often argue with my students about whether we should aim for good design, "good Mexican design," or "good Latin American design." I maintain that we should aim for good design, and good design must respond to the local context, be anchored in the territory, consider materials, and now more than ever, respond to environmental conditions. Today, there are other considerations that perhaps were not as relevant during the time of the Eames, or even Clara Porset. When globalization began, we talked about mass design, producing millions for millions, and we now realize that this is not sustainable. As a designer, just like as a writer, you have an implicit reader and you are solving a specific need. Societies are not homogeneous, so markets must be segmented and nourish diverse design perspectives.
Good design is not about making Chac mool chairs or thermoformed plastic chairs that were made at more opportune times. Not having a historical perspective on design in Latin America seems very serious to me, because then we don't have the tools to understand design. I believe there is a very important part there, and a part that has occupied me a lot in my work, because I think that if we don't know where we come from, it's difficult to project who we are or what we want to be.
Figure A: Installation view of Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980, on view at The Museum of Modern Art from March 8 through September 22, 2024. Photo: Robert Gerhardt
Figure B: Clara Porset (Mexican, born Cuba. 1895–1981). Butaque . 1957. Laminated wood and woven wicker, 28 3/4 × 25 13/16 × 33 7/16″ (73 × 65.6 × 84.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Modern Women’s Fund. Digital image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Q: How do visions of modernity and tradition interact when making design?
During modernity, along advances in science and technology, design was subject to a series of tensions. On the one hand, Latin American design sought the contemporary but also tried to cling to tradition; it wanted to be international but also to develop a local language; it aimed to be industrial, yet it anchored itself in craftsmanship. And today, these cultural binaries remain active. Latin American modernity is very different from the Western modernity we were told about. Even the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York promoted an idea of a hegemonic modernity that seemed unique, and now we realize that there are many modernities.
It's difficult to speak of a single Latin American modernity because I believe there are variations and adjustments in each of the territories, according to their idiosyncrasies, and their economic, political, and social conditions. Nevertheless, these Latin American territories have a very strong common characteristic, which I now see as much more rooted, that is, the part of craftsmanship or the manual as a form of resistance and resilience. At the moment when we opened ourselves to globalization, the industrial and developmental utopia we had in Latin America did not work, because we could not compete with transnational companies, global policies, and other international infrastructures. But what resisted and resists is the handmade, the tradition-based, artisan workshops; this hybrid design that is between semi-industrial and semi-artisanal, anchored in the territory with local materials. In many international forums such as Milan Design Week, there is a very prominent return to artisanal materials and handmade products. And in this, Latin America is key and central because it also has to do with understanding the richness of biodiversity and biomaterials in our territories.
Q: How to design a design exhibition?
Curating the "Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940-1980" exhibition at MoMA was very significant for many reasons, but one of them was that I was able to meet Gui Bonsiepe, who had always been a reference for me. When I asked him if he felt that design today was in crisis or in decline, he said, "we have set aside understanding design as a project discipline." Design as a project has many stages, and design as a project, is projected. An exhibition is projected, planned, researched, developed, and then executed, and often these steps are not one after the other. Perhaps you projected in a certain way, but it turns out that the prototype didn't work, and you have to go back. Or perhaps a new alternative appeared, and you have to take another path. Undoubtedly, there is a very important design process and a design project behind an exhibition.
As in any curation process, there is a process of vision, and therefore, a subjective vision, which inevitably means leaving things out when choosing pieces. This is something that I have fully accepted, it is what I have learned and what interests me. In the exhibition "A Handmade Modernity" at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), I left out many people because I had to choose what I found, because I did not find many pieces, or because the only existing piece was not lent to me. In these processes, I have realized how difficult it is to find not only pieces but also photos of women designers, and there is an important level of invisibilization. Hence the idea of creating an exhibition on "Design in Feminine," presenting designs made by women and understood by women and told by women, and also told by men. I think it is very important for design to be told by women and seen by women because they faced completely different considerations and still were able to accomplish many things. From understanding these creative duos or pairs who work in tandem, at a time when there were no gender reflections; to reflecting on work and domesticity, and the culture of care. I think as a discipline, we still lack many reflections, and especially from a historical perspective.