85502 Chap.7 Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters
Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters
Beyond the world centres
Week 7 starts from the fact that designing has happened in every culture and region, even though histories placed design’s centres in Western Europe and North America.
The Global South
A required reading explains why the term became useful to academics, activists and politicians, and the lecture applies it to Latin America.
Cuban posters
The case study is poster art as a tool of the Cuban socialist revolution, influenced by Global South peers, pop art, local traditions and histories of Spanish and American colonialism.
The tutorial skill is database searching. Studying design from the Global South changes what counts as a centre. It also shows that design can serve purposes other than selling, such as building a political project, which is a useful contrast for any artefact you choose.
What this chapter covers
- 01
World centres and the wider history of design
- 02
What the term Global South does
- 03
Cuban posters and the socialist revolution
- 04
Influences on Cuban visual culture
- 05
Kitchens and everyday life under Cuban socialism
- 06
Searching library databases well
- 07
Poster and kitchen as paired evidence
Worked example · free
Place a design object in Global South context
- 1Identify the genre: Cuban film posters, which the lecture presents as a key tool of the socialist revolution.
- 1Date the context: Pertierra (2017) places the 1990s in the post-Soviet crisis known as the Special Period.
- 1Name the influences the lecture lists, such as pop art, Cuban traditions and relations with African and Asian counterparts.
- 1Reflect on access: the poster may reach you through a collection in the United States, which shapes how it is seen.
Key terms
- Global South
- A term for regions and peoples positioned outside the historic centres of economic and political power, used by academics, activists and politicians.
- Special Period
- The name used in Cuba for the economic crisis that followed the loss of support from the former socialist bloc in the 1990s.
- Socialism
- An economic and political system in which production is organised collectively or by the state rather than for private profit.
Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters FAQ
Why study Cuban posters in a design history subject?
Because they show design developing outside the world centres of capitalism. The Week 7 lecture describes Cuban graphic designers and other creative workers developing whole families of posters in the service of the socialist revolution, drawing on Global South peers, pop art, local traditions and colonial histories.
Is the Dados and Connell reading about design?
No. The lecture page says it is set because it shows why scholars, campaigners and others came to find the term Global South useful. Use it as a conceptual tool and apply it to the design examples from the RISD poster collection and the Cooper Hewitt essay.
What is the Week 7 tutorial skill?
Library database searching. The tutorial shares a recorded UTS Library lecture on information skills, then runs a group exercise finding high-quality resources on the week’s theme, with tutors helping students who have already chosen their Assessment 2 artefacts.
Which readings are set for Week 7?
Three: Dados and Connell’s short 2012 piece in Contexts on the Global South, the Cuban Posters digital collection at the Rhode Island School of Design, and a 2019 Cooper Hewitt essay on the Cuban film poster. Further resources include an interview with the poster artist Giselle Monzón and a manifesto for decolonising design.
What does the kitchen have to do with Cuban design?
Pertierra’s recommended chapter argues that Cuban socialism has been lived as much through kitchens and appliances as through public squares. She links the 1990s crisis called the Special Period, and a 2006 national Energy Revolution policy, to everyday cooking and housework, showing politics reaching into the most ordinary designed objects.
Assessment move
Browse the RISD Cuban Posters collection and save two posters with full catalogue details. Write a one-paragraph context for one of them using a second source for the period. Practise three database searches on your own Assessment 2 artefacts, changing one keyword each time and noting which search gave the best scholarly results.
Add one sentence to your notes on how a Global South example could pair with a familiar artefact for Assessment 2.
Working through Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters in 85502? Sia is AskSia’s AI Arts and Humanities tutor — ask any 85502 Design in the Global South: Cuban Posters question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how 85502 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
