Printed matter, nomad matter

In a dictatorial or repressive context, movement can be said to be one of the most fundamental and disruptive forms of (aesthetic) resistance. Through exile, migration, travel or correspondence, bodies, ideas and objects are permanently displaced, searching constantly for lines of flight that are impossible to pin down by any political regime. When associated with art, the elusive and ever changing nature of movement can transform objects into events, creating an affective network of images, words, objects, ideas and relations. The ideological potential of movement can be found acutely in artist’s publications, or art in the form of printed matter, such as artist’s books or mail art, which have the potential to circumvent physical limitations imposed by repressive apparatuses. Also, movement triggers imagination to put together all the elements of the network thus constructed and put into motion, also entailing (different levels of) collaboration. This exercise entails taking a closer look to the material and historical circumstances of these objects that become deeply imbedded with ideology. So, by looking at the triangulation movement-time-history, I aim to investigate some ways women artists have used printed matter to revised, confront and debunk totalizing narratives, such as women’s role in society, capitalism, slavery, colonialism, etc., that have been sustained by and have themselves sustained the repressive and dictatorial regimes that operated in Portugal and in Brazil.