Forms to read, forms to see
Product Design project resulting from a partnership between the Gulbenkian Art Library and the António Arroio Art School, for the design of displays for artist’s books.
The project
The project Forms to read, forms to see was the result of a mutual interest between teachers from the Product Design course at the António Arroio Art School and the Gulbenkian Art Library in designing equipment to display four artist’s books from the library’s Artist’s Books and Independent Edition collection.
Within the curriculum of the Project and Technologies discipline, the aim is to provide students with exercises that reconcile design practice with the equivalent need to represent and materialize their ideas. Collaboration with an external partner, around specific and real problems, gives the project a more important meaning than the exercise itself, awakening in the students a sense of greater involvement and responsibility, and resulting in deeper and more contextual learning.
In the 2024/2025 school year, the Gulbenkian Art Library became a partner of the Project and Technologies discipline, choosing 4 artist’s books from its collection for the development and materialization of the final works of the 11th grade students.
The choice of books
The Art Library’s collection of Artist’s Books and Independent Editions is, in the national context, the most relevant and representative of the contemporary creation of Portuguese and foreign artists with a connection to Portugal and currently contains around 6,000 titles.
The choice of artist’s books for the project was shared between the teachers responsible for the discipline and the librarian in charge of the collection’s development and was based on the following criteria: their formal and conceptual characteristics, the authorship of women artists and the fact that they had not yet been displayed.
The books chosen were Alice no País dos Pesadelos (2023), by Valérie Agostinho, Chão natural (2022), by Irene Buarque, Livro de Tália (2016), by Carla Rebelo, and Mensagem da Ilha (2024) by Sara Maia, all of which corresponded to the established criteria and shared common exhibition challenges, complex and specific, due to the forms, techniques and materials of each one.
Methodology
The methodology applied to the development of the project included an initial visit by the students to the Art Library, during which they were introduced to the chosen books and given notions of conservation and museum guidance techniques required for exhibiting this type of works.
In the classroom, the methodology involved dividing the students into groups, and each group was required to create proposals both for the exhibition of each book individually and for their exhibition together.
During the development of the work, the groups made further visits to the library, without intermediation, to observe each of the books in detail. This action was decisive not only for understanding their characteristics, techniques and materials, but also gave them a better understanding of how the whole and the parts can come together in an exhibition project.
The library’s monitoring of the students’ research and formal study process included a working visit to the school by the librarian co-responsible for choosing the books and the conservator, during which each group presented the conceptual framework of their proposals and the first material solutions for each of the 4 books.
The students also had the chance to present their work in progress and exchange ideas with two of the authors of the artist’s books under study: Carla Rebelo and Sara Maia.
Results
The conclusion of this partnership between the Art Library and the António Arroio Art School is the public presentation of the final proposals made in the Project and Technology subject by the 11th A class of the Product Design course.
Credits
Students
Beatriz Francisco, Beatriz Ungureanu, Beatriz Marcelino, Benedita Coutinho, Diogo Pinto, Francisca Koenders, Iara Roxo, Íris Oliveira, Isaac Santos, Maria Oliveira, Maria Ferreira, Margarida Picos, Matheus Cruz, Mariana Caeiro, Mariana Monteiro, Raquel Leal and Rita Cavaco
Coordination Art Library / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Ana Barata and Sónia Casquiço
Coordination António Arroio Art School
Frederico Moncada, Luís Giestas and Tânia Andrade