The first edition of Porto Design Biennale, under the theme Post Millennium Tension, understands design as a mediating discipline in the face of emerging social challenges and seeks to find new alternatives, concrete utopias that have the potential to be materialised. In this regard, applicants were invited to think about the tensions, mutations and urgencies of the new millennium from the following perspectives: designer as author, where the creation of an own language fosters a critical outlook into the designer’s own role of agent in context; designer as producer who uses the means of production and technology to think meaningful processes and objects in the context of a rapidly shifting production market; designer as collaborator within a wide disciplinary framework in which the intersections between authors and fields of knowledge points out new proposals for the future; designer as curator, creator of selected narratives, combining historical and contemporary materials and proposing innovative readings of the worlds. Rather than categorizing, applicants were expected to explore different forms of action, single or joint, presenting a wide range of formats, such as: debate/colloquium; workshop/training; exhibition/installation; publishing/edition. Integrating the biennale’s parallel programme, priority was given to projects that propose critical approaches to the general theme of this edition and are capable of rethinking the traditional formats of public presentation, broadening the reach of audiences and the ways of interacting with them. The Open Call For Projects launched by the Porto Design Biennale received a total of 82 submissions. The jury unanimously selected 10 projects. The winners will be presented under the Satellites program, from September 19 to December 8.

Desconecta [PT] Author: Ana Paiva A website that only works offline, featuring a great number of posters only visible if the internet is switched off. The (mis)guided Tours [PT] Authors: Laurem Crossetti, Isabeli Santiago, Alícia Medeiros A series of critical walking tours that aim to reflect on the city space around us. Conducted by professionals from various fields, each tour proposes a unique and creative approach to operate on the urban environment. DEPT. [PT] Authors: Calibro, Duncan Evennou, Donato Ricci, Benoît Verjat A research project investigating, through a participative workshop, the effects and impacts of digital platforms on Porto urban tissues, its material culture and habits. It mixes design, digital sociology and performing arts approach for producing, visual and material, grounded discussion and dialogues. Espaço Dúbio [PT] Authors: Studio Nº3 (Bruna Henriques, Sara Silva, Teresa Araújo) A digital newspaper with original content that surveys the phenomenon of fake news. The purpose is to make the reader aware of the fact that the highlighted content is fake. This is done through an augmented reality app that reveals the truth. Futuresse [CH] Autor: common-interest (Corinne Gisel, Nina Paim, Ann Kern) A feminist library of blind spots, untold stories, and missing narratives within design history and theory. The project takes the form of an ever-growing online platform to which anyone is invited to submit book titles for histories and/or theories of design that are yet to be written. DESIGNAgorá [IT] Author: Associazione Socio Culturale italiana del Portogallo Dante Alighieri, Francesca Vita A documentary film programme that features the naturally existant links between design and some of the major questions of our time, namely the ability to mediate environmental tensions, envisage new strategies for the cities and new ways for renewing local knowledge. Making as thinking: reflective practice in the age of unknown [PL] Author: Wiktoria Szawiel With uncertainty as a departure point and doubt as a guide, we will risk to act and react in the moment. Participants of the workshop will be confronted with an ambiguous setting, and be invited to frame, react, intervene, converse and re-frame the found situation. Posthuman Design [IT] Authors: The Bench Collective (Alessandro Ianniello, Shanti Alberti di Catenajo, Andrea Alò, Lorenzo Angè, Giovanni Di Crescienzo, Lorenzo Fort, Andrea Giussani, Giulio Interlandi, Marcello Maffi, Andrea Mancinelli, Gianluca Marchitelli, Rei Morozumi, Cristina Muto, Giovanni Orlando, Marco Sebastiani, Lorenzo Vasilotta) An exhibition takes visitors on a trans-media journey set in a futuristic scenario, which mixes augmented reality in a natural, almost primordial environment. The exhibit set makes contents usable through an engaging user-experience, which turns participants into proactive users who actually experiences it, taking advantage of the technological devices that we always carry with us. Pop’lar [PT] Author: Joana Carneiro An interactive exhibition that aims to democratize the cultural imaginary of Portuguese popular music. Taking the design of K7 covers in a private collection as starting point, the exhibitions seeks to restore the tactile aspect of music. Beyond the physical space, the symptomatology of mental disorder [PT] Authors: Vítor Barbosa, Ana Macedo, Bárbara Gomes, Pedro Fonseca This project aims to contribute to social awareness on mental health through a compilation of information and data on mental disorder in two areas that almost opposed to each other: scientific knowledge and common knowledge. Through an immersive installation (projection, photography, text and everyday objects), this project aims to make the audience enter the inner world of the person suffering from mental disorder.   OPEN CALL FOR PROJECTS [09.04—03.06.2019] — WINNERS [download] — REGULATION [download] — CLARIFICATIONS [download I + II]