PROJECT CO-FUNDED BY
Gazete Azulejos is a collective that aims to revive and sustain the original craft of hand painted Azulejos tile making. The Porto based entity represents one of the few remaining instances of tile makers currently involved in the small-scale production of Azulejos, in a city that was once home to several large tile producing kilns.
Gazete Azulejos is a collective that aims to revive and sustain the original practice of hand painted tilemaking. The Porto-based initiative is one of the few remaining entities that are still involved in small-scale production of hand-painted tiles, in a city which was once home to a substantial number of large tile-producing kilns. It seeks to leverage a series of most pressing concerns regarding Azulejos, such as the surge in tourism, to work in favor of the restoration of traditional tile making. Gazete Azulejos addresses the prevailing disinvestment surrounding the craft by:
doing on-ground research on the technical, factual and contextual aspects of the craft to gather evidence for supporting the argument for the craft’s safeguarding and restoration; developing a digital open-source catalogue of Azulejos designs in the city marking precise street locations; conducting Azulejos-making workshops, which are publicized online and have been received with enthusiasm by locals and tourists alike. For the tourism sector, in particular, the workshops present a creative solution to the tile-theft issue, wherein the initiative encourages visitors to
make their own Azulejos instead of buying stolen pieces as souvenirs; inviting eminent illustrators and artists to create artworks using Azulejos as a medium; taking custom orders for replacing lost or destroyed hand painted Azulejos on building facades. Gazete Azulejos represents an intervention scenario which not only promotes active community-based creative engagement with a heritage craft but also communicates the undiminished resonance of a local traditional practice to contemporaneity.
Gazete Azulejos addresses the prevailing disinvestment surrounding the craft by doing on-ground research on the technical, factual and contextual aspects of the craft to gather evidence for supporting the argument for the craft’s safeguarding and restoration.
Anti-Amnesia organised a two-part workshop “Binary Tiles” for students of Masters in Multimedia, University of Porto, wherein during the first part, entitled “Analogue coding”, coordinated by Eduardo Morais, the participants were introduced to the non-digital analogue fundamentals of codification, and how it creates visual and mathematical bases for everyday digital interactions. In the second part, held at and coordinated by Gazete Azulejos, the participants manually transferred their bitmap patterns to ceramic tiles which were then glazed using the Majolica traditional tilemaking technique.
Gazete Azulejos is a collective that aims to revive and sustain the original craft of hand painted Azulejos tile making. The Porto based entity represents one of the few remaining instances of tile makers currently involved in the small-scale production of Azulejos, in a city that was once home to several large tile producing kilns.
Gazete Azulejos is a collective that aims to revive and sustain the original practice of hand painted tilemaking. The Porto-based initiative is one of the few remaining entities that are still involved in small-scale production of hand-painted tiles, in a city which was once home to a substantial number of large tile-producing kilns. It seeks to leverage a series of most pressing concerns regarding Azulejos, such as the surge in tourism, to work in favor of the restoration of traditional tile making. Gazete Azulejos addresses the prevailing disinvestment surrounding the craft by: doing on-ground research on the technical, factual and contextual aspects of the craft to gather evidence for supporting the argument for the craft’s safeguarding and restoration; developing a digital open-source catalogue of Azulejos designs in the city marking precise street locations; conducting Azulejos-making workshops, which are publicized online and have been received with enthusiasm by locals and tourists alike. For the tourism sector, in particular, the workshops present a creative solution to the tile-theft issue, wherein the initiative encourages visitors to make their own Azulejos instead of buying stolen pieces as souvenirs; inviting eminent illustrators and artists to create artworks using Azulejos as a medium; taking custom orders for replacing lost or destroyed hand painted Azulejos on building facades. Gazete Azulejos represents an intervention scenario which not only promotes active community-based creative engagement with a heritage craft but also communicates the undiminished resonance of a local traditional practice to contemporaneity.
Gazete Azulejos addresses the prevailing disinvestment surrounding the craft by doing on-ground research on the technical, factual and contextual aspects of the craft to gather evidence for supporting the argument for the craft’s safeguarding and restoration.
Anti-Amnesia organised a two-part workshop “Binary Tiles” for students of Masters in Multimedia, University of Porto, wherein during the first part, entitled “Analogue coding”, coordinated by Eduardo Morais, the participants were introduced to the non-digital analogue fundamentals of codification, and how it creates visual and mathematical bases for everyday digital interactions. In the second part, held at and coordinated by Gazete Azulejos, the participants manually transferred their bitmap patterns to ceramic tiles which were then glazed using the Majolica traditional tilemaking technique.
The project “Anti-Amnésia: Investigação em Design como agente para a regeneração e reinvenção, narrativas e materiais, de culturas e técnicas de manufactura portuguesas em desaparecimento” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029022) is supported by Competitiveness and Internationalisation Operational Programme (POCI), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and through national funds by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
