Call for Dossier

TACWARA DOSSIER - Artistic and Artistic-Cultural Relations Between the United Kingdom and Brazil

Since 2016, TACWARA – a project dedicated to the study of relations between Brazil and the United Kingdom has been structured together with the PPGHA with the aim of identifying cultural contact points and artistic and visual dialogues between these two poles of artistic geography. At this moment, we propose the creation of a dossier exclusively dedicated to mapping these relations in their broadest sense. Spanning 5 centuries, the dossier will accept articles that may cover topics ranging from the 17th to the 21st century, as long as they highlight or clearly present the cultural dialogues between the two entities and are based on some type of visual production or incorporate literary, critical, or musical elements to the phenomena strictly associated with visual arts. Exceptionally, we may include texts covering the theme of UK artists’ production in Portugal from the 1780s – 1820s, as well as those circulated throughout South America until the mid-19th century. The extensive travel literature, diplomatic accounts, wartime or military character records, all interest our dossier, as long as they are approached from the perspective of producing visual clues or records. This also includes landscape, portraiture, or graphic arts in general that have materialized these interactions.

We are interested in the exchanges that intensified throughout the 19th century, whether materialized by professional or amateur artists in transit between the United Kingdom and Brazil, or those linked to scientific expeditions or non-canonical trained sketchers – tourists who have left records of their Brazilian stay, informal records, or notations in logbooks, etc. - or even records produced in some scope of institutional setting or proximity to Brazilian government and power structures, such as those left by Maria Graham or Henry Chamberlain. Texts dedicated to botanical studies may constitute a separate field in this dossier, particularly those that highlight the role of women in this field of visual production, whether dedicated to Marianne North in the 19th century or even Margaret Mee in the 20th century. Relations between the history of Brazilian landscaping and British institutions such as Kew Gardens or the experience of landscape design in the United Kingdom are equally welcome. We highlight the contributions of British artists in creating topographic visual records, mappings, or representations of mining activities or other industrial activities on Brazilian territory.

We also welcome articles on the most recent artistic and cultural exchanges and interactions – from the 1960s onwards - whether dedicated to national artistic representations in one sense or another of the flow, whether in Biennials and other exhibitions or in individual exhibitions of British artists in Brazil and Brazilian artists in the United Kingdom. Likewise, texts about Brazilian artists or art and culture critics in exile, passing through or established for long periods in the United Kingdom, such as in the case of Torquato Neto, Hélio Oiticica, or Antônio Peticov, are welcome. Collections that include Brazilian art in the United Kingdom or UK art in Brazil are other topics that can be addressed in the proposed articles. Any contacts between the popular arts in the United Kingdom and Brazil, non-canonical phenomena that have had an impact in one way or another are also welcome. Finally, we also open this dossier to analyses of how the artistic debate between Brazil and the United Kingdom can benefit from methodological renewals and new approaches to visual phenomena and how these innovations have been consolidated on both sides. We hope, thus, to create a network of discussions and agents dedicated to this long and peculiar cultural relationship and to bring researchers interested in the topic closer together.

In addition to the relations described above, which are closer to Brazil, the dossier also opens to similar themes verifiable in South America or that witness triangular relations between the United Kingdom and other countries in the region. Contributions will be welcomed and evaluated by our editorial committee.

Contact for Prof. Dr. André Tavares - Organizer of the Dossier for Edition 5 of Image: Art History Journal: andre.tavares@unifesp.br