S A M I Z D A T *
The Samizdat workshop (January / April 2010), lead by
Marco Balesteros and Sofia Goncalves was developed
at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon. It was
attended by 25 participants [1] from diverse backgrounds,
mainly graphic designers but also artists and curators.
The central issues discussed were, among others, the
blurring roles in the editorial process; the designer as
author / editor / producer; the workshop as an academic
practice that enables a critical and experimental attitude
towards the production of content.
Digital culture and new media were also discussed
as a phenomena responsible for the proliferation
of publications and editorial strategies.
Following a meta approach, the context of self-
publishing was explored after a Statement of Intentions,
and it was centered around 7 themes: (ideology(ies),
art/publication, editing/content, print culture/digital
culture, meta-media, production, distribution
/audience/reader).
These issues led to a series of individual publications
(monologues) and to collective contributions (as
a result of a panel discussion), both of them acting
as a critique on the context of self-publishing.
Some of the production media included: mimeography,
xerography, screen printing, among others.
Samizdat publication serves as a record of this work-
shop, as well as a reflexion about self-publishing
(including essays, the individual publications and the
collective contributions).
[*] Samizdat is a Russian term that describes the
phenomenon that emerged in the USSR after Stalin.
The word Samizdat, etymologically, is formed by “sam”,
that in Russian means “self / by oneself” and “izdat”
—“publishing house”. This concept perfectly illustrates
the genesis of self-publishing and was associated with
the dissemination of political, subversive and
revolutionary ideas, in the form of printed matter that
passed from hand to hand, thereby escaping the
censorship.
——
Edited by:
Marco Balesteros & Sofia Gonçalves
Participants[1]
Andreia Almeida, Nuno Belmonte, Inês Bento, Ana
Bouza, Filipa Cordeiro, Bárbara Fonseca, Ana Freitas,
Pedro Gonçalves, Teresa Lima, Rafael Lourenço, João
Lucas, João Machado, Marta Mestre, Daniel Neves,
Mónica Oliveira, Raquel Pinto, Margarida Rego, Mariana
Sameiro, João Santos, Rui Silveira, Joana Sobral,
Catarina Vasconcelos, Mariana Veloso, Marius Wenker
Critical texts:
Marco Balesteros, Sofia Gonçalves,
Olga Zaslavskaya
Proof reading:
Marco Balesteros, Sofia Gonçalves,
João Machado
Tradução/Translation
(textos/texts M. Balesteros & S. Gonçalves):
Carla Santos