Infographics of Wisdom: Study on the individual legacies of retired academics in art and design higher education and research

The work presented in this paper is part of the research project "Wisdom Transfer (WT): Towards the scientific inscription of individual legacies in contexts of retirement from art and design higher education and research”. Considering that, in Portugal, art and design research has only recently been validated as a scientific discipline, it can be argued that the available scientific heritage precedes the formalization of these disciplines - and, consequently, resides in an older generation of researchers who led a first moment of transition from practice to academia. Due to the advanced age of these scholars, all this wisdom and experience is in danger of being lost. The WT project aims to investigate, register and legitimize this academic, cultural and artistic heritage. In the first phase of the work, a group of 30 art and design retired academics graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Porto were selected using snowball sampling to be individually interviewed, to collect testimonies and life stories within the academy, both as students and lecturers. This collection was done along with visual analysis of data gathered both at their studios and from their work. Considering the results of these primary sources, the purpose of this study is to analyze all the information, synthesize it and present it in an infographic structure. Subsequently, it is intended to compile these infographics and present it on a website, in order to facilitate access to all interested parties, especially current art and design students.