Learning Ecologies: From Past Generations to Current Higher Education

Visual archives towards the recovery and reactivation of artistic and pedagogical heritage at the School of Fine Arts in Porto

“…As stated earlier, the interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview script with open-ended questions (Creswell & Creswell, 2018;Quivy & Campenhoudt, 2008;Weller et al, 2018), that sought to gain insights on the experience of the artists as students and as teachers; their curricular and interpersonal relationships; their connections with art related entities and art based movements in other countries; influences and impacts of the political scenario in their work; and regarding the first pedagogical practices in the scope of Design at ESBAP (Lima et al, 2020a).…”

“…When possible, the interviews took place in personal spaces of the artists, such as their homes or studios, which allowed the researchers to apply direct and indirect observation methods (Quivy & Campenhoudt, 2008); to obtain a set of exclusive observations in the context of the interviewees' statements; and to witness, first hand, practices that had "characterized their creative processes" which "were integral to the methodologies" they used in teaching (Lima et al, 2020a). The interview format also allowed a comfortable narrative flow to be maintained with the interviewees, encouraging spontaneous readings and interpretations of situations that were relatively personal and, at times, of a sensitive nature.…”

“…practices from the decades under study and effectuate a transfer of empirical wisdom from past generations to present (Lima et al, 2020a(Lima et al, , 2022b.…”

“…The archive, during the project period, also acted as a framework for aiding the recollection of period-specific memories and was, thus, often referred to in-situ during active research. However, its main more significant purpose was to document, preserve and activate heritage -the artistic legacy of a generation of creatives and their endowment to the regional social and cultural fabric that was essentially unacknowledged in local contemporary discourses, to an extent that the current generations of art and design students at the school had limited or no knowledge of their existence or contributions (Lima et al, 2020a(Lima et al, , 2022b. The archive, thus, provided a basis for safeguarding these legacies for future reference and towards dynamic reinterpretation in contexts of exploratory research and practice by future generations.…”

“…This article analyses a specific set of research methodologies that have contributed to the recovery of artistic and pedagogical histories and practices connected with the School of Fine Arts (Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto/ESBAP) in Porto, Portugal, that were prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s -an era which preceded and culminated in the political and sociocultural Revolution of 25 April, 1974. This pre-revolution period was marked by a dictatorial and politically repressive regime, and in the context of the school, and of art education in general, these were times when less conventional artistic practices such as forms of abstract art were not encouraged, and despite a few foreign influences, the access to art materials and bibliography was critically limited, with the few accessible resources generally being of poor quality (Lima et al, 2020a).…”