Abstract
Design is a relatively new discipline in Uruguay. The dominant discourse, linked to Industrial Design-ID, has its beginnings in the foundation of the Centre of Industrial Design-CDI in 1987. This research is an invitation to look further into how ID has played a role in Uruguay -as a global-south country- related to economic and social structures introduced with the implementation of neoliberal production policies. In line with current global-south design discourses, the research aims to understand the role of institutions in the formation of design discourse(s) in Uruguay by approaching the CDI’s foundation from a decolonial worldview. Following the idea of de-schooling as a search for alternative systems in combination with an approach to design ontology as a means of autenticidad, I ask: What was the role of educational institutions in the construction of the current dominant design discourse in Uruguay? The conclusion I reached regards the importance of re-reading history through critically understanding the mixture of socio-political structures surrounding such one dominant design discourse. Whilst uncovering the historical dependency of Uruguay on Europe as its ‘only cultural origins’, it shows the importance of transiting a self-inclusive cultural process, by accepting the pluriversality that has historically converged in the Uruguay cultural formation.
Keywords
Decolonial design, Uruguayan design, Critical-discourse-analysis, un-learning
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2020.022
Citation
Cornú, L.(2020) (De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay, in Leitão, R., Noel, L. and Murphy, L. (eds.), Pivot 2020: Designing a World of Many Centers - DRS Pluriversal Design SIG Conference, 4 June, held online. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2020.022
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
(De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay
Design is a relatively new discipline in Uruguay. The dominant discourse, linked to Industrial Design-ID, has its beginnings in the foundation of the Centre of Industrial Design-CDI in 1987. This research is an invitation to look further into how ID has played a role in Uruguay -as a global-south country- related to economic and social structures introduced with the implementation of neoliberal production policies. In line with current global-south design discourses, the research aims to understand the role of institutions in the formation of design discourse(s) in Uruguay by approaching the CDI’s foundation from a decolonial worldview. Following the idea of de-schooling as a search for alternative systems in combination with an approach to design ontology as a means of autenticidad, I ask: What was the role of educational institutions in the construction of the current dominant design discourse in Uruguay? The conclusion I reached regards the importance of re-reading history through critically understanding the mixture of socio-political structures surrounding such one dominant design discourse. Whilst uncovering the historical dependency of Uruguay on Europe as its ‘only cultural origins’, it shows the importance of transiting a self-inclusive cultural process, by accepting the pluriversality that has historically converged in the Uruguay cultural formation.