Ocupando Grietas
Latin American Magical Realism as a Creative Framework for Bridging Epistemologies
[ critical, speculative, and editorial design ]
Ocupando Grietas explores the potential of Magical Realism to bridge epistemological gaps in creative practices, offering a framework that challenges hegemonic Eurocentric narratives and advocates for a critical, grounded approach to design and storytelling. Rooted in the Latin American expression of the genre, it traces the historical emergence of storytelling as a response to the region’s socio-political landscape, examining literature as a site of resistance and the agency of the author in shaping context, positioning Magical Realism within the realm of the critical and the speculative.
Framed within an intersectional playground, the theory is informed by a network of critical and creative voices. Drawing from art-based methodologies, it negotiates the space between theory and practice. The work is materialized in a dissected publication that reimagines Magical Realism into design principles, provocations, and actionable strategies, inviting reflection, participation, and intervention.
A conversation between Magic and Reality
The theoretical foundation of Ocupando Grietas is grounded in a literature review that weaves together perspectives from visual culture, literature, psychology, and design theory. It begins by situating storytelling and Magical Realism in the Latin American context, addressing key events that have shaped the Latin American experience and led to the emergence of the genre. It then delves into the literary foundations of Magical Realism as a culturally responsive and critical agent emphasizing its role in questioning dominant narratives and producing alternative historiographies through its narrative strategies. Lastly, it builds a conceptual bridge between literature and design. Expanding on the literary foundations of the genre into the design context, arguing for its potential as a critical tool for creatives. Positioning both the narrative strategies of Magical Realism and designers as active agents of social transformation rather than passive creators.
Negotiations of Method
Building on this foundation, the methodological framework is situated within a qualitative, arts-based, and interdisciplinary research paradigm. The study embraces research as a practice deeply entangled with systems of power, knowledge, and representation. It draws from cultural and literary analysis to challenge dominant epistemologies, while holding space for both intentional methods and intuitive discovery.
Resisting linearity, the process unfolds as an iterative and exploratory journey, weaving together storytelling, history, fiction, and design as valid modes of inquiry. Through the lens of Magical Realism and its narrative strategies, the project embraces fragmentation and inhabits the gaps, disrupting hierarchies and affirming the coexistence of multiple realities. In this space, theory and creative practice are inseparable; it is through making that knowledge takes shape. Designers, like authors, are invited to become storytellers.
A Framework for Creatives
Ocupando Grietas is materialized as a dissected publication titled Ruminations Canvas, designed to critically, speculatively, and visually explore Magical Realism’s narrative strategies and reframe them into a creative framework for creatives. The decision to work with a canvas and to dissect the publication reflects the project’s core values, disrupting linearity and hierarchy, and inviting new ways of reading, knowing, being, and engaging. The use of experimental typographic layouts, conceptual page numbering, the intentional use of empty space as a generative element, hand-bound pages that embrace alternative ways of creating, and the red thread as a symbolic reference to Latin American creativity all visually ground the work in its conceptual foundation. The canvas format introduces flexibility, movement, and openness, transforming the publication into a space for collaboration, reflection, and the co-construction of meaning.
Inhabiting the Inbetweens
The intention is not to present a finalized piece, but to invite others to construct meaning through interaction. The tools used in the creation of the canvas are made available for participants to engage with, encouraging them to intervene, reflect, and question their own practice as designers through the lens of Magical Realism. Ocupando Grietas contributes to ongoing discussions around the intersectional playground available to designers and the importance of occupying the space between epistemologies in creative practice.
By offering a framework for understanding how creative expressions shape, and are shaped by their context, the project highlights the designer’s agency to reframe, rewrite, and present narratives. It reinforces the transformative power of storytelling within Latin America’s cultural and historical context, and emphasizes Magical Realism’s potential beyond literature, arguing for its continued relevance as critical tool for creatives.
User Intervention
User Intervention
Conceptual Page Numbering
Generative Empty Space
User Intervention
Provocations
User Intervention
Alternative typographic layouts
Print Design
Conceptual Page Numbering
Ruminations Canvas
Provocations
User Intervention
User Intervention
Cartography Print
User Intervention
Provocations