Dedicate your time to the Porto Design Biennale Symposium and Open Forum at Almeida Garrett Municipal Library

The first edition of Porto Design Biennale (PDB) 2019 advances a programme to rethinking design in the new millennium. The feature theme of the 1st Porto Design Biennale is "Post Millennium Tension 2019" and focus on contemporaneity and urban environment. PDB runs from 19th September 2019 till 17 November 2019.

The PDB programme includes the satellite symposium "Papanek symposium 2019 - real world: design, politics, future", on 26th September, starting at 9.30am at the Auditorium of Almeida Garrett Municipal Library and the following day, on 27th September, the Open Forum: "Portuguese Colonialism", in the same venue, led by the Decolonising Design Group.

"The stakes for design have never been higher, as its interventions are dispersed across all aspects of the informational, virtual and material strata that shape our real worlds."

The Papanek Symposium 2019 is jointly organised by Alison J. Clarke and Francisco Laranjo in partnership with the Porto Design Biennale, to provide a debate on the role of design and its politics in the context of problematic times.

This debate includes the participation of several keynote speakers, notably Ahmed Ansari, doctoral candidate in Design Studies at Carnegie Mellon University and researcher in the fields of design, cultural theory, and the philosophy of technology; Akwugo Emejulu, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, with a focus on political sociology, including inequalities across Europe and grassroots campaigns for women of colour; Annelys de Vet, Brussels based designer, initiator and curator, founder of a bureau for graphic research and cultural design DEVET; Cameron Tonkinwise, Professor of Design Studies at the University of Technology Sydney and Director of the UTS Design Innovation Research Centre, incorporating the Designing out Crime Research Project.

Also present as a speaker is Flavia Dzodan, independent writer, media analyst and cultural critic based in Amsterdam, who usually writes about politics, colonialism, race and gender issues, and is also the editor of the blog "This Political Woman"; Natsai Audrey Chieza, designer and the founder of Faber Futures, a R&D studio that creates biologically inspired materials.

The Decolonising Design Group will take part in the symposium and at the Open Forum. This group was founded in 2016 by eight design researchers, artists, and activists stemming from or with ties to the Global South, as a response to "Euro- and Anglocentric socio-technical politics and pedagogies of design as both a field of research and praxis".

The Open Forum starts at 9.30am, under the theme "Portuguese Colonialism" and includes the debate "Parallel Workshops, Various Locations".

Entrance to both activities is free but subject to room capacity. Ticket collection must be done until 1 hour before the event at Porto Design Biennale Headquarters. To pre-book your seat send an email to info@portodesignbiennale.pt.

See here for further information.