Design in a Feminine Key. Mexico Today
The history and practice of design were established from a male perspective. The foremost men designers predominated in books and historical records, occupied the pages of magazines and were those who registered the most patents. In contrast, women designers have had to face enormous gender prejudice, which has prevented some from fully developing their practice and left others out of the historical narrative. Given the longstanding patriarchal gaze, which has permeated textbooks, academic programs, and exhibitions, it is essential to explore new pathways that take us to the careers of women designers in Mexico: their contributions, ideas, political and labor stances, their social and professional networks, and their designs.
Design in a Feminine Key. Mexico Today gives us a closer look at design created by women in Mexico over the last two decades, promoting reflection on their advances and achievements. The exhibition showcases, reviews, and documents the work of a community of women who have chosen to make design their profession and way of life.
In addition to including pieces by Mexican and foreign women designers who have developed their practice in Mexico, there are also works by Indigenous women, who are commonly referred to as “artisans.” Their practice can also be defined as “design,” but they have been overlooked by the discipline because of discrimination, racism, and other cultural and social blinders.
Organized into seven major sections, the exhibition explores different trends and dimensions of design that have prevailed in collective ideological meanings and the supposedly feminine practice of design in the first decades of the twenty-first century: schemes for rethinking tradition and the handmade; collaborative frameworks; visual solutions for identity purposes; the use and production of biomaterials; building global design from the local, are just some of the current discourses that allow us to state that design today is diverse and inclusive, and that women play a very important role in its implementation and development.
In a world in which the binary categorization of gender (female-male) is questioned in an increasingly explicit and contentious way, it is important to think about the very term “feminine” and its cultural categorization —while feminine characteristics tend to be associated with women, they are not exclusive to us. It is also worth considering women’s production in the branches of design, the difficulties, not to mention the opportunities they have found and the paths that can be taken in the future.
The range of works on display invites viewers to reappraise the notion of purposeful and powerful design in a feminine key —not in an enchanting or mystical sense, but tangible and practical— that enables openness, creativity and human expression and expands the narrative that can be created around women in design.