Design e artesanato: uma reflexão sobre as intervenções realizadas na costa do descobrimento - BA

Abstract

In this study, the intention was to perceive and understand how one can live in the capitalist context, reelaborating the cultural, material and immaterial bases of our society. Through the approach between the design and the anthropology, a reflection was conducted in order to understand the way that subjects, such as the cultural identities and the diversity of expressions that constitute the societies culture, were considered in the processes of design intervention in communities or groups of handmade production. Those studied interventions took place in the state of Bahia (Brazilian Northeast), in the yearof 2000, and were accomplished by the Craftsmanship Commission, which was a group constituted by governmental institutions, non governmental organizations, financing and regional development agencies, among others. The documental research was privileged as a methodological proposal. The chosen option was to understand the study phenomenon and its relationships with the other elements and social actors, as a track about the hibridization process of the cultural elements that are part of the consumption urbanindustrial society with the communities’ social dynamics and the groups of handmade production. Initially, the research process began through the search for understanding about how the planning and the implementation of the design intervention in the craftsmanship context is elaborated, which tools are used and which connections are between the design and the craftswork in the Brazilian context. The reports given by the Bahia Design Program, the institution which is responsible by the coordination of the intervention group, were used as a main source of information. From these reports, important information could be drawn about the specialists’ and technicians’ role and participation in the intervention process, also about the systematization of the used methodology and the report of the first stage accomplished by the Bahia Design experience at the area denominated Coast of the Discovery, which includes the municipal districts of Belmonte, Santa Cruz Cabrália and Porto Seguro, as well as its results and unfoldings. We established as guiding theories the dialogue withsome authors, such as Canclini, Ortiz, Denis, Kistmann, among others, who debate the concepts and the approaches regarding the artefacts and the material culture, the quotidian – as the space of the interactions and the materialization of the culture -, the design and the industrialization, the craftswork and the consumption society. The interpretation and the discussion about aspects that defined the intervention process were accomplished, as well as the discussion about their relationship with subjects such as the apparent or non apparent conflicts among the cultural systems, the incorporation of the handmade production and its dynamics within the merchandise production, circulation and consumption system, in a way to understand how they interact and influence each other. Throughout the analyses, it was possible to attest that the interventions are, in a restricted field of performance, a progress in the insertion process of traditional societies in the capitalist world, nevertheless they are still, in many aspects, mistaken initiatives.