Plataforma da Cultura Visual da Medicina em Portugal
Organic Unit: FCSH
Research Center: ICNOVA
Organic Unit: FCSH
Research Center: ICNOVA
In an unprecedented initiative in Portugal, this online gallery brings together a vast historical collection of Portuguese medical photography from the collections of museums and archives. The platform is an output of a research project focused on the visual culture of medicine in Portugal.
Born from a project of the former Center for Communication and Language Studies (HC/0110/2009), now ICNOVA, the Visual Culture of Medicine in Portugal platform is an unprecedented initiative in the country. For the first time, an online image gallery presents, in free access, a vast historical collection of medical photography produced in Portugal.
Medical photography emerged and developed at the crossroads of technique, science, and arts, having been clearly perceived as one of the main agents providing the laboratory status of modern scientific medicine.
Gathered in this gallery, the medical and anthropometric images from the collections of national museums and archives allow an unprecedented historical look at the history of the visual culture of medicine in Portugal. The platform is divided into five main areas: Medicine, Anatomy, Forensic Medicine, Psychiatry and Panoptism in Portugal (the latter with images of the Miguel Bombarda hospital, whose security pavilion was designed as a panoptic building).
Coordinated by António Fernando Cascais (ICNOVA – Culture, Mediation and Arts group), the R&D project History of the Visual Culture of Medicine in Portugal was funded by FCT and aimed to identify, characterize, and extensively document the visual culture of medicine in Portugal.
