Re-designing the Sensory Order: Forms, Practices, and Perception

In 1963, the Italo-Brazilian designer and architect Lina Bo Bardi introduced her exhibition "Nordeste," the inaugural show at the Museu de Arte Popular (MAP) in Salvador da Bahia, with the following words: This exhibition is an accusation. An accusation of a world that does not want to renounce its human condition in spite of forgetfulness and indifference. It is not a humble accusation, and counterpoints a desperate effort of culture to the degrading conditions imposed by men. (Bo Bardi, 1995, p. 5) Contrary to what one might expect after such an explicitly political announcement, there were no photographs, texts, or other documentary material on view that gave any literal depiction of the social misery of the region. The exhibition consisted solely of ordinary, everyday objects that Bo Bardi had arranged into a modernist display. But how can an exhibition be an "accusation" if it shows us nothing but things? Starting from this example, I hope to address the following more general questions: What constitutes the social impact of design and to what extent is the political linked to questions of form? What becomes perceivable through the re-arrangement of existing things that would otherwise have remained invisible? And why is it important to think about design when it comes to social inequality under postcolonial conditions?