EdenX 3.0
Installation October 27 — November 03, 2023
local Reservatório de Água Nova Sintra, Porto
curador Mariana Pestana, Joana Pestana
Core Programme
EdenX is a digital platform that tries out more-than-human ways of dialogue focusing on the river, its constituents, and their rights, seeking to destabilise the anthropocentric vision still prevailing in the relationship of most people with nature and contributing to an alternative ecocentric development.
During the Porto Design Biennale, around 15 people will come together online to speak on their own behalf or on behalf of other organisations using fiction, artificial intelligence, monitoring sensors and other technologies. Half of the participants will be selected through an open call. As well as being a platform for dialogue, EdenX works as a decentralised, self-managed deliberation and decision-making tool, in which all participants can put forward their proposals and vote on proposals put forward by others. The conversation will take place in three narrative moments, in text, in Portuguese, and it will be possible to watch it in real time or deferred at the installation located at the Água Nova Sintra Reservoir or via the website www.edenx.pt.
Exhibition Opening
27.10.2023 - 6h30 pm
+ info
Parque das Águas (Reservatório de Água Nova Sintra)
Rua Barão de Nova Sintra, 4300-367, Porto
Monday to Saturday
10:00 — 18:00
Mariana Pestana is an architect, curator, and researcher. She is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico / Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI-Larsys), where she is the Art and Culture Coordinator for the “Bauhaus of the Seas Sails” project. She has a PhD in architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture (2019) and is co-founder of The Decorators studio (2010-). She curated the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial “Empathy Revisited: designs for more than one” and co-curated the exhibitions Eco-Visionaries (MAAT, Matadero, Royal Academy) and The Future Starts Here (V&A) among other public programmes. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Stanley Picker Gallery, Jardins Efémeros, Walk & Talk Festival and the Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture.
Joana Pestana is a designer and educator. She has a PhD in Digital Media and is a guest lecturer at FBAUP, having previously taught at various institutions, including the Catholic University of Porto and the Kingston School of Art. She has been working as an independent designer since 2012, having developed visual identities, exhibition, editorial and web projects for cultural organisations such as MAAT, the London College of Communication, the London College of Fashion and the Porto Municipal Gallery. Since 2016, she has developed independent and collaborative projects focused on critical reflection on the monopolies of digital technologies, including the creation of the exhibitions Omniscience: Strategies of Fracture and Escape (Fórum da Maia, 2021), Scrolling the Arcane (2020) and Critical-GPS (Royal College of Art, 2018).