PDB Exploratório Programme:

• 20.11 | Table Time Impression
  workshop
  with Rute Chaves and Inês Colaço
  14h00 - 17h00
  
  
• 22.11 | À Descoberta do Tempo Inútil
  workshop
  with Descomunal
  10h00 - 17h00
  
  
• 27.11 | From Spain With Design: Conexões Ibéricas para um Futuro Comum
  round table
  with Gloria Escribano, Apitropik, Uqui Permui, Lígia Lopes
  18h30 - 20h00
  
  
• 28.11 | Desconstrução da Pista
  concert
  with Lu Zia
  21h00 - 22h30
  
  
• 06.12 | Tempo de Brincar
  intergenerational workshop performance
  with Ana Carolina Fonseca, Inês Carneiro, Sara Neves and Beatriz Sarmento
  10h30 - 12h30
  
  
• 13.12 | Fala-me de Tempo
  talk
  with Rosa Alice Branco, Francisco Laranjo and Maria João Macedo
  17h00 - 18h30
  
  
• 19.12 | Sextou Encerrou
  party of Porto Design Biennale
  19h00 - 00h00

 

Full Synopsis:

Table Time Impression
20.11.2025
Cyanotype Workshop, with Rute Chaves and Inês Colaço

Cyanotype is a photographic printing technique in shades of blue, where the image emerges from the reaction between iron salts and ultraviolet light. In this workshop, the experiment takes the form of a three-metre by one-metre tablecloth, spread out in the sun, becoming the support for a collective exercise in printing through time.

Led by Rute Chaves and Inês Colaço, ‘Printing Through Time’ proposes a reflection on memory, recording and its fragility.

The price of the workshop includes an object to print using the technique and take home, as well as a shared coffee break. And don't forget: bring your favourite piece of tableware with you — it will be part of the print in time.

• Price: 6€ (Coffee break + object to print using the technique included)
• Capacity: 25 people

Registration link - Coming soon 

 

À Descoberta do Tempo Inútil
22.11.2025
Workshop with Descomunal

On 22 November, in partnership with the organisation Descomunal, Exploratório will host a utopian (or dystopian) workshop.

The workshop takes the form of a project: a question is posed, which each group is invited to answer by developing a proposal to be presented at the end. The question stems from a simple but provocative reflection: do all tasks have value? What if all our activities were remunerated? From domestic tasks such as washing clothes, family tasks such as taking children to school, or even care tasks. In this scenario, we think about what is useful time and useless time. We rethink the value of things.

• Price: 20€ (With lunch and coffee break included)
• Capacity: 20 people

Registration link - Here

 

From Spain With Design - Conexões Ibéricas para um Futuro Comum
27.11.2025
Round Table

The purpose of this round table is to present, on the one hand, the From Spain With Design project, which currently brings together the work of 167 studios from different areas of design, allowing for multiple readings, approaches and interpretations of contemporary practice. It is an open project that invites us to think of design as a tool for connection, analysis and social transformation.

On the other hand, the round table also seeks to promote the creation of international collaboration networks, especially between designers and researchers from Spain and Portugal, through the presentation of three or four projects: two Spanish and two (or one) Portuguese. These cases will serve as a starting point for reflecting on social and participatory design. In line with the conceptual framework of the Biennial, we propose to open the debate on questions such as: Are we still in time to recover common ground? Have we designed the present with a view to transforming the future?

Ultimately, the round table aims to create a space for dialogue and shared thinking, where design is understood as a means of social interaction and a tool for rethinking our relationships with the territory, the communities and the time we inhabit.

 

A Desconstrução da Pista
28.11.2025
Lu Zia Live Set

Lu Zia is a sound artist, producer and one of the founders of the Porto-based label and collective Polyester. His work inhabits the intersection between the language of the environment and dance music culture, exploring soundscapes where the natural and the synthetic coexist in constant tension.

Composing his own universe, made up of sound textures and artificial landscapes, Lu Zia's live set brings us the deconstruction of the dance floor. 

 

Tempo de Brincar
06.12.2025
Intergenerational performance workshop

What happens when playtime is understood as presence time?

In a world where time is often measured by productivity, we propose a reversal — a collective exercise in slowing down and listening, where play becomes a practice of attention and creation of the common. Play, seen here as a discipline and universal language, is simultaneously a gratuitous gesture and a political act: it rejects the logic of usefulness, welcomes the unexpected, and opens space for relationships that are built in the present.

‘Tempo de Brincar’ is a performative and participatory event designed for all ages (from 3 to 99 years old), which transforms the Exploratory space into a territory of experimentation, play, and shared imagination. The proposal combines performance, literature, and workshop in a fluid format in which the audience is invited to observe, listen, and participate.

Three performers use fragments of children's and young adult literature to create a moment of improvisation and collective activation, in which the audience is invited to explore the space and their own relationship with time: time to play, time to be together, time to do nothing.

 

Fala-me de Tempo
13.12.2025
Talk with Rosa Alice Branco, Francisco Laranjo, and Maria João Macedo

A conversation moderated by poet Rosa Alice Branco, with contributions from designers Francisco Laranjo and Maria João Macedo, all connected to design but from different backgrounds.

 

Sextou Encerrou
19.12.2025
Closing Party of the Porto Design Biennale 2025

The Exploratório, as a space for celebration and headquarters of the Porto Design Biennale, will host the closing party for this edition on 19 December.

This celebration is intended to be a moment of gathering and recognition of the work developed throughout the event, valuing the collaboration between artists, designers and the territory.