TIME IS PRESENT, Porto Design Biennale

What was once a parking space is transformed into an immersive landscape, inviting visitors to explore the shifting dimensions of time and knowledge. At the heart of the intervention lies a newly carved central avenue, created through selective demolitions. This spine draws visitors deeper into the exhibition, setting itself in deliberate contrast to a system of oblique, diagonal walls that fracture linearity and open up unexpected paths of discovery.

Inspired by the concept of cosmic latte, the average colour of the universe as seen from Earth, the exhibition bathes its visitors in a palette that embodies the immensity of time itself. Light drifts through gradients of orange and yellow, evoking the eternal rhythm of sunrise and sunset, of mourning and renewal, and imbuing the journey with a profound sense of temporal resonance.

The exhibition invites us to consider design practices as a constituent part of the creation of shared social ecosystems, where the Common is not a foundation but a production, an invention of a state of becoming, in which designers collectively reclaim the relational, collaborative, and qualitative dimensions of shared experience as an essential alternative to the exploitative logic of contemporary capitalism.

What happens when design shifts from solving future problems to gardening present possibilities through collective agency?
Bringing together over 60 projects, this manifesto exhibition showcases a variety of design initiatives and innovative formats, organised according to the most participatory common factor: our emotions.

2025, Porto, PT

Curators: Angela Rui and Matilde Losi

Exhibition Design by D_P_S

Team: Diogo Passarinho and Gonçalo Reynolds

Graphic Design: João Queirós

List of Participants: A+N studio (+ Studio Tom), A—Z Collective (Anja Lutz + Laura Meseguer), Kevin Adorni, Nabi Agzamov (5th Studio), Francis Alÿs (+ Julien Devaux + Félix Blume), Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle, Architensions (Alessandro Orsini + Nick Roseboro), Olivier Arcioli + Pascal Glissmann + Andreas Henrich, Hoda Judah Armani, Asena Bacaksız, Andrea Branzi + Nicoletta Morozzi, Maria Carnall, Leonor Carvalho, Sergi Casero Nieto, Matilde Cassani, Davide Fabio Colaci, Jordi Colomer, matali crasset, CORRE, Benedetta Crippa, Daily tous les jours (Mouna Andraos + Melissa Mongiat), Didier Fiúza Faustino, Gabriel Fontana, forty five degrees, Studio Giacomo Moor, HGK Basel FKNW (Fabienne Alina Wyss, Katharina von Koss, Felix Jordi, Linda Schirmel), Femke Hoppenbrouwer, Incolto (Giuseppe Defilippis, Lorenzo Zappia, Stefano Zappia), Shiila Infriccioli, Ania Jeglorz, Martin Konzett + Anders Khan Bolin, Ugo La Pietra, Flora Lechner, Lexus Europe ED² (Ken Billes, Tyrone Pillay), Rui Caldas, ESAD Matosinhos (Paula Carolina Moreira + Justinas Mažeika + Joshua Wait, Bárbara Quelhas), Rui Peixoto Lira, Cristian Loddo, Pietro Lora, Francesco Lupia, Macedo Cannatà + Patrícia Costa + Cannatà Fernandes + Letícia Costelha, Makea (Alberto Flores + Mireia Juan), Marisa Morán Jahn (Studio REV-), Paulo Moreira + Tiago Antero (ATA Atelier), D_P_S (Diogo Passarinho + Gonçalo Reynolds), Anna Puigjaner, João Queirós, raumlaborberlin (Francesco Apuzzo), Franco Raggi (+ Alessandro Mendini + Davide Mosconi + Nazareno Noja), Sarah Ross, Social Label, Elena Tosi Brandi, Space Transcribers + Álvaro Domingues, Barbora Středová, Studio Noff (Daniel Garber + Amalia Magril), Francesca Tambussi (+ Paul Layzell), Miguel C. Tavares, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, William Tooze, Olivier Troff, Pavan Vadgama, Stef Veldhuis, Dominic Wilcox + Liam Saint-Pierre, Zhicheng Xu + Mengqi He (Hyperlocal), Eliza Hanna Zimmermann + Nicole Faiella Perdomo.

Photography: Inê d'Orey