Estratégias de resistência dos artefatos políticos de Zuzu Angel: testemunho & crítica nas relações entre a moda, a arte e o design

Abstract

In the 1970s, thestylist / designer Zuzu Angel was committed to the defense of democracy through her creations. After the murder of he son Stuart Angel by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), she initiated critical interventions in order to denounce the violence of the State. To this end, she designed collections representing the conflicts and the torture used by the military regime against political prisoners. In 1971, she held a show narrating, through prints, embroidery and texts, testimonies of contemporary Brazilian history. The dress entitled Anjo became the iconic piece of the collection in which she embroidered a visual narrative denouncing the necropolitics. From this creation, we will analyze the political artifact, starting from Winner’s research (1980) in order to propose a correspondence with Critical Design. Following the notions presented by Dunne and Raby, we will analyze political action and critical thinking in design. In thisr egard, we will dwell on the sense of politics by authors such as Arendt (2002), Benjamin (2012) and Bensaïd (2008). Finally, we will present the analysis by Disalvo (2012) and Mouffe (2000) regarding Adverse Design and the sense of agonism. The proposal is to think about how the projects in Design and Fashion by Zuzu Angel were transformed into a political confrontation, being a resistance to the Brazilian military dictatorship. We will investigate how fashion style enabled her design work to subvert guidelines on usability and function. Through the conceptual field, Zuzu Angel also approached artistic interventions, performing feelings such as loss, pain and silence.