- Title
- Revealing creative responses to censorship during the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985)
- Creator
- Lopes da Cruz, Crystian
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This practice-led research investigates the censorial activities applied to creative arts during the dictatorial military regime in Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Until very recently, not many Brazilians were aware of censorship during the dictatorship because the government kept this operation secret during most of this authoritarian regime (Reimão 2011). This research aims to unveil the process of censorial activities to provide current and future generations with a better understanding of the consequences of censorship in activities involving creative work, such as magazines, newspapers, books, songs, soap operas, films and theatrical plays. The research examines the interaction between censors and professionals who produced creative work ruled by censorship, in an attempt to reason if the constraints imposed were prejudicial to the creative process of artefacts or if it enhances the quality and relevance of the result by inflicting more challenges to the creative process. The research presents an in-depth analysis of cases of creative responses to censorship by journalists, musicians, writers and designers. While most artists just wanted to carry on their daily activities (Kushnir 2004), others such as the musician Chico Buarque attempted to bypass imposed restrictions and used wit to strike back (Silva 2008). This research focused on examining primary sources including thousands of official documents produced during the censorial process, and currently stored in public and private archives. The analysis is based on conceptual categories and properties of using Grounded Theory, with the intent to generate a unique database of vetoed keywords and better understand the impact of censorial activities on creativity. The methodology applied to curate the censored terms can be crowdsourced by other researchers to continue extending this database or to create new ones. The outcome of this analysis is a body of works of critical design practice based on the emerging field of design activism. The approach is based on the principle of visual storytelling to provide a unique look into censorship intended to provoke new engagements with this theme. The creative practice in this research is centred on an interactive typographic experiment that emulates the experience of being censored by those directly affected by censorial activities.
- Subject
- censorship; typography; design activism; creativity; visual storytelling
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1509130
- Identifier
- uon:56212
- Rights
- Copyright 2022 Crystian Lopes da Cruz
- Language
- eng
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