Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

It took only two days and four hours of protests in social media to shut down the Queermuseu. Little viewed but highly debated, this art exhibition in South America is one of the key chapters in a narrative that is shifting the public opinion towards a new cultural and political landscape that sways against freedom of expression, secularity, tolerance, and diversity. This paper is part of an ongoing study that examines the role of design as an instrument of post-truth and the thriving authoritarianism that is putting democracy under pressure in Brazil. The methodology explores, in its conceptual framework, ideas of embodiment (technological bodies and digital existences, enablers of online and multiple identities), systemic ideology, normalization (from the normalized erosion of civil rights to the imposition of normative models), in tandem with an iconological discussion about the social media response over the work displayed on the exhibition, with a critical and historical recount of the events that led to it being censored by its organizers.