VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages
Abstract
As a contribution to the historical background of product design and material culture in Colombia, the photographic image and the chair were key sources. Upon reviewing nearly 1,000 photographs from within the digital repositories of the National, Luis Ángel Arango, and Medellín Public Libraries, dated between 1880 and 1960, the diversity of the chair tells myriad stories: of the photographic scene, of everyday life, of the juxtaposition of foreign and local chairs, of the links between tradition and modernity, of the chair in a variety of spaces such as public and domestic, of the chair as a harmonic element of the architectural space, of the chair in relation to various subjects — as well as various ways of sitting, some in the absence of the chair, and those connected with Westernisation. This paper presents the results of a research project into chairs in these photographs made from a compendium of images of Colombian visual heritage, and through which we hope to contribute to: its recognition and its value by making visible other uses, and other possible knowledge. The research used iconographic, iconological, theoretical visual corpus, and hypertextual analysis because written documents were studied as well.
Professor at the National University of Colombia, Bogotá. Her research includes the history of industrial product design and material culture in Colombia, especially in the first half of the 20th century.