Detailed programme now available

It is predicted that by 2030 there will be a 40 per cent water deficit in relation to demand. How can we take care of what we don't know very well? This edition of the Porto Design Biennale presents a programme of exhibitions and other activities that will work simultaneously on the visible and invisible, organic, inorganic and ephemeral spectra of water. 

As well as designing better and more efficient uses for water, this edition of the Porto Design Biennale will endeavour to conceive models of alternative, symbiotic cohabitation between humans and more than humans, in an advantageous and sustainable relationality for all. 

Taking place between October 19 and December 3, the Porto Design Biennale today released its detailed programme for an edition that starts from the most fundamental element, Water, to discuss and think about the role of Design in the emerging environmental survival. Curated by Fernando Brízio, this edition's Main Programme features a series of exhibitions, installations and talks that aim to create a transdisciplinary platform for thinking about the various dimensions and experiences surrounding water resources. The programme brings together national and international voices in a dialogue that seeks to shape more sustainable, equitable, free and happy futures.

Petrichor, the Smell of Rain is the main exhibition in this year's programme. Designed by Fernando Brízio and installed at Casa do Design in Matosinhos, this exhibition emphasises the ubiquity of water, its presence and circulation as a central element connecting all things. Through fluid interfaces (artificial heart valves, diving helmets, boats, ship traffic trackers, underwater vehicles for mapping underground aquifers, among many others) and also places of communication, exchange, interaction/intra-action between waters (in their various states), and between waters and other agents, we reflect on aqueous fluid interfaces and how they are crucial to all the relationships of matter in the world. 

Installed on the 3rd floor of the Palácio dos Correios in Porto for the duration of the Biennale and curated by Miguel Vieira Baptista, the exhibition Ligações was conceived as a collection of objects produced mainly in Portugal, with a simple glass of water as its starting point. Water as a material is the central element here, with the aim of creating links between the visitor and the various contents, in an exhibition where there is no pre-defined route.

Also in Porto, at the Nova Sintra Water Reservoir, Joana Pestana and Mariana Pestana are proposing the EdenX 3.0 installation, a digital platform that rehearses ways of dialogue between humans and non-humans about rivers, their constituents and their rights. During the Porto Design Biennale, around 15 people will come together online to speak on their own behalf or on behalf of other organisations. 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 Nova Sintra Water Reservoir or via the website www.edenx.pt.

The exhibition The WaterSchool Classroom: Cabinet of Curiosities, developed by Studio Makkink & Bey (Rotterdam), presents speculative fictions about how design creates sustainable forms of water use and community life. Two rooms of the Biodiversity Gallery will be transformed into a 'Cabinet of Curiosities', presenting proposals from artists, architects and designers and guests who intend to generate a debate on how housing, life and work can be rethought and even redesigned with water and its use in mind. 

At the Palacete Viscondes de Balsemão - Gabinete Triplex you can visit the exhibition Erasing the Line: Between Land and Water, curated by Ivo Poças Martins. Here, the Cabedelo do Douro area is the territory chosen to raise profound questions about the borders and lines that separate (or unite) the different elements that make up life on Earth. The exhibition route is punctuated by the work of artist Attilio Fiumarella. 

Also at the Palácio dos Correios, this time on level 7, Margarida Mendes presents Catharsis, an exhibition that showcases the work of transdisciplinary research collectives, solidarity movements and activists who report from different bodies of water. From the Bogotá River to the lower Mississippi River, from the palm groves of Marrakesh to the desertified lands of the Gulf or the Channelsea, these collectives establish connections between ongoing struggles taking place in river basins in various parts of the world. Countering these modes of occupation with acts of creative response, the examples of water insurrection presented here call for the abolition of borders and the privatisation of resources. 

As in previous editions, the Porto Design Biennale has integrated the perspective of other territories and countries into its programme. This year, Galicia (Spain) is the featured territory. For curator David Barro, responsible for the programme of the country invited to this edition of the Porto Design Biennale, the future must be thought of in relation to water and the ocean. These are the mirror of what is happening in the world, and even more so if we consider the Atlantic position of Galicia and Portugal; hence the relationship with water and the sea is the starting point and the finishing point of this programme. A proposal that is embodied in Galicia. Processes and Forms, an exhibition and editorial project that traces the past, present and future of Galician design, showing some of its milestones through a series of key professionals and companies for their commitment to design as an engine of innovation from the 1920s to the present day. It will be on show at the Galeria Municipal de Matosinhos throughout the Biennale period. 

Alongside the exhibition activities, the Porto Design Biennale will also feature an extensive programme of talks. Aquilégio - Conversations with those who find and keep water brings together voices from multiple backgrounds. Anthropologists, designers, geologists, architects, artists, engineers, activists, politicians, filmmakers and chefs will share their work and thinking, fostering dialogues and plural encounters with water.

The Porto Design Biennale programme also includes a vast programme of satellite activities, projects selected through an Open Call to reflect on the theme of Water. Among the 10 projects selected are gastronomic activities, film cycles, installations, performances and an event based on the recovery of the Petróleo board game. On the table will be wide-ranging and original forms of discussion around the preservation of water resources, decontamination of the land, readings on global power relations and tests on recyclable materials. 

The programme also includes a series of Constellations, autonomously organised and curated events which, due to their disciplinary and thematic relevance, are included in the Porto Design Biennale programme. The work of Álvaro Siza, the furniture sector and sustainability and the reuse of materials are some of the topics covered.

In this context, Agora du Design and the Institut Français du Portugal are presenting the exhibition Electric Algae, curated by Scott Longfellow, at the Marques da Silva Foundation. The exhibition features two projects: Samuel Tomatis' investigation into the green algae that invade beaches and create toxic organic matter; and Pablo Bras' work on residential suburbs and the flows, materials and energies present in these areas.

The Porto Design Biennale is an event that has fostered debate and welcomed multiple concerns and perspectives, as well as stimulating interest in design, encouraging new discourses and practices that increase the discipline's forward-looking capacity to devise innovative solutions to collective problems.