2024/10/14 by Lopes, David, Machado, Graciela
#Art-based research #Cartography #Historical materialism #Labor #Map-printing #Printed Cartography #Printmaking #University of Porto historical archive
paper · doi:10.34626/2184-9978/2024_vol4_n1_1092
This paper aims to demonstrate how art-based research can propose alternative readings in History through the study of the technological past of printmaking. Our focus scope will be lithography, the art of printing from stone, as we’ll be highlighting how the technique developed parallel with power structures from the 19th-century, serving Europe’s interests in colonisation by increasing the number of printed maps. In a very practical sense, map-printing depended on many participants: those who drew, those who prepared the printing matrixes and those who printed. What if we gave a voice to the people who were producing such maps? What would these say of the conditions of their labour? What would their stories be, and what would be their opinions on the application of maps to warfare? Our reflection is based upon concrete case studies of historical cartography produced in 19th-century Portugal, which are stored in the archives of the University of Porto.