https://vimeo.com/266880524

Imaginary Portugal - Tourism, Propaganda and Power (1910-1970) is an iconographic documentary exhibition that gives an overview of the evolution of tourism in Portugal, from the beginning of the 20th century to the beginning of the 70, identifying themes, graphic expressions and the main lines of ideological orientation of the entities that, throughout this period, assume the national tourist promotion: Propaganda Society of Portugal, Secretariat of National Propaganda, National Information Secretariat , Popular Culture and Tourism.

In a context in which the gentrification of the main Portuguese cities, motivated by the acceleration of tourism, emerges as the theme to demand careful reflection, this exhibition of the Matosinhos's House of Design allows a deepening of the knowledge around a national idealization conveyed by the tourist communication and propaganda , starting in the context of an internationalist ideal of the 1st Republic and reconfiguring itself - once the Estoril was established as a tourist resort created from the roots and the miracle of Fatima - with the Estado Novo.

Tourist promotion was, during this period, one of the most effective instruments of national and political propaganda in the creation of an Imaginary Portugal under the direction of António Ferro, to which notable modernist designers and illustrators contributed (Fred Kradolfer, Paolo Ferreira, Bernardo Marques, Tom among others), mostly forgotten by the History of Art and Design due to their connections to the regime.

The selected documents (posters, brochures, magazines, books and objects of popular art) demonstrate the artistic and graphic quality of the materials produced, at a time of the emergence of a new aesthetic paradigm and great renovation of the graphic arts.

They also appeal to the discovery of tourist destinations publicized by the Salazar regime, illustrating the motives then associated with the Portuguese tourist imagination to create an image of a modern and civilized country, based on the appropriation and recreation of rurality and folklore. The portrait of a Sunny Portugal, which was great in the dimension of a colonial empire, simultaneously traditional and rural, modern and tasteful, also allows a reflection on the contemporary identity of a country and its narratives, sometimes realistic, now idealistic.

Imaginary Portugal is an exhibition organized by the Matosinhos's City Council and by the esad-idea, Research in Art Design and is evident in the Matosinhos's House of Design from April 18 to September 1.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/esadmatosinhos/albums/72157693811312961

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