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

Abstract

This article reviews the development of a visual archive within the scope of a funded project Wisdom Transfer that was realised at the Faculty of Fine Arts (FBAUP), University of Porto, in Portugal from 2018 to 2021. The project’s directional objective was to research on the pedagogic environment at the faculty during key years preceding the Revolution of 25 April 1974, towards recovering and reactivating the connected historical, empirical, and technical heritage – which had had a pivotal influence on the maturation of the faculty’s now distinctive cultural identity. The visual archive was based on photographic and audio-visual materials gathered through a series of interview-based sessions with noted artists who were associated with the faculty during the indicated period as either teachers or students. The photographic materials included both original imageries belonging to the period, and contextual pictures taken during the project period, and became generative resources for both the reconstruction of pedagogic histories, and their reinterpretation in contemporary contexts of creative education. The article, thereby, concatenates the methodological elements that were instrumental in the articulation of the visual archive, alongside a number of key project outputs towards highlighting the efficacy of photographs and photography in conducting social research.