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The

Artist

Nominated in
2025
By
Bienal Fotografia do Porto
Lives and Works in
Porto, Portugal
Jéssica Pereira Gaspar is a Portuguese transdisciplinary artist, born in Coimbra in 1996. She began her academic journey in sciences and technologies, which profoundlyinfluenced her methodology, research focus, and creative practice. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from Universidade Lusófona de Lisboa and her Master's degree in Visual Arts from Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha.‍Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Science and Technology of the Arts at the Catholic University of Porto, where she is developing research on interfaces for interspecies communication and artistic co-creation with different organisms.Her practice centers on interactions with other-than-human entities and their dynamic agency, seeking to unravel the intricate relationships between living organismsand matter. By integrating multiple mediums such as image, video, sound, and organic materials as catalysts for immersive experiences, her work creates a space for reflection on the interconnectedness of all entities.‍ In 2022, she was awarded a scholarship for an art residency at RAMA, where she developed the solo exhibition Spectacular Instability. She also participated in Zonas deTransição (2023), a project by the PLMJ Foundation, showcasing Transmutations II, a piece later included in the foundation's collection. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions such as A Certain Practice of Attention (2023) and the XXII Biennial of Cerveira (2022). In 2024, her work was included in the Portuguese Emerging Art book, the Millennium BCP Young Art Award from which she was awarded the Portuguese Serigraphy Center Award.In 2025, she was one of the five artists to be selected to represent Porto and Ci.clo Platform in Futures Photography Festival of 2025.
Projects
2021

River drawings

River drawings with light.
2023

Seeing d'light in a foggy memory

"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.” Wassily Kandinsky
2021

Refractions

"There is a long history of using vision and optical metaphors to talk and theorize about knowledge. The physical phenomenon of reflection is a common metaphor for thinking-a little reflection shows this to be the case. Donna Haraway proposes diffraction as an alternative to the well-worn metaphor of reflection. As Haraway suggests, diffraction can serve as a useful counterpoint to reflection: both are optical phenomena, but whereas reflection is about mirroring and sameness, diffraction attends to patterns of difference... Diffraction involves reading insights through one another in ways that help illuminate differences as they emerge: how different differences get made, what gets excluded, and how those exclusions matter." Karen Barad
2021

Ensaio sobre a cegueira

"Por que foi que cegámos, Não sei, talvez um dia se chegue a conhecer a razão, Queres que te diga o que penso, Diz, Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos, Cegos que veem, Cegos que, vendo, não veem." Ensaio sobre a cegueira - Saramago
2021

River drawings

River drawings with light.
2024

Cells

Drawing inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s ideas on mechanical reproduction and perception, this work investigates how digital apparatuses can expand our sensory
capabilities. The camera, or other technological devices, become an extension of vision, unveiling layers of reality beyond what the naked eye perceives. Just as microscopy revealed hidden worlds, digital tools allow us to see alternative structures in the everyday, emphasizing the interplay between the organic and the artificial. This project explores how ordinary objects, when seen from new perspectives, can resemble microscopic organisms, revealing reality as an interconnected pattern. The images challenge our perception of the mundane by transforming the familiar into something that can resemble a living cell in a process of division.

The distorted images evoke cell structures, bacteria, or even embryonic forms, questioning the boundaries between the micro and macro, natural and artificial. The contrast between organic-looking shapes and technological intervention invites viewers to reconsider how we define life, perception, and materiality. By manipulating perspective, light, and movement through usage of digital tools, Cells encourages a deeper reflection on how the mechanisms of perception shape our understanding of the world. The project seeks to bridge scientific observation with artistic experimentation, revealing a hidden continuity between the visible and the imperceptible.

2021

This is not another screen

This project is a part of a long and deep interest for watter and its inherent lively dynamics and simbology.
2021

Diffractions

"Diffraction involves reading insights through one another in ways that help illuminate differences as they emerge: how different differences get made, what gets excluded, and how those exclusions matter. " Meeting the Universe Halfway - Karen Barad
2021

Ensaio sobre a cegueira

"Por que foi que cegámos, Não sei, talvez um dia se chegue a conhecer a razão, Queres que te diga o que penso, Diz, Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos, Cegos que veem, Cegos que, vendo, não veem." Ensaio sobre a cegueira - Saramago
2021

Diffractions

"Diffraction involves reading insights through one another in ways that help illuminate differences as they emerge: how different differences get made, what gets excluded, and how those exclusions matter. " Meeting the Universe Halfway - Karen Barad
2024

Symbiophone

Given fungi’s ability to perceive environmental stimuli, including sound-induced vibrations, this research questions how human-generated sounds impact mycelium, uncovering previously overlooked dialogues in which humans may unknowingly engage. Fungi establish mycorrhizal networks, an intricate communication system formed by the interweaving of mycelium with different plants and trees, linking entire forests. These networks foster inter-species communication and represent a crucial model of symbiosis. Symbiophone is a metaphorical method of communication with fungi. It aims to create room for reflection on overlooked agents while offering a glimpse into a unique form of inter-species communication and upon manifestations of existing in symbiosis.
Jéssica
was nominated by
Bienal Fotografia do Porto
in
2025
Show all projects
Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.

Inês Quente’s They Dream Not is a research project, initiated through an ArtsIceland international artistic residency and expanded in Aveiro, Portugal. The work, incorporating alternative and historical photography, analog film, drawing and collage, investigates places rich in nature, with diverse geography and weather conditions, to understand the profound relationship between the Earth and all its inhabitants (Animal/Plant/Fungus). Quente lives in Lisbon and has an MA in Documentary Filmmaking from the University for the Creative Arts, UK, and a BA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Portugal.

Emanuel Constantino is interested in the practical process of photography in analog format and the unpredictability of the results it offers. His project (…) se elas houverem, a gente vai tirá-las (if there are any, we'll take them out) examines the universe of documentary and fiction in their various intersections and interactions. This curious, inventive body of work was activated by Constantino’s discovery of an online archive – the 1995 Radio and Television Portugal broadcast titled ‘Rumour about Piranhas in the River Ave’. Constantino lives in Porto and has a BA in Photography from the School of Media Arts and Design in Porto, Portugal where he is currently undertaking a MA in Cinema and Photography.

Drawing inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s ideas on mechanical reproduction, Jessica Gaspar’s project Cells investigates how digital apparatuses can expand our sensory capabilities. The camera becomes an extension of vision, unveiling layers of reality beyond what the naked eye perceives. Just as microscopy reveals hidden worlds, Cells proffers an alternative lens to the everyday, an intersection between the organic and the artificial. Gaspar lives in Porto and holds a PhD in Science and Technology of the Arts from Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal and a BVA from the Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal.

To João Bragança Gil João The Origin (On&On) is a type of ‘origin’ that approaches and retreats, meets and diverges. The project utilizes pre-digital media of carousel and photo slides to project a circular notion of time. The tangibility of the process slows time and creates a reflective viewer engagement, with time, as we know it, transformed. Based in Lisbon, Bragança Gil has a BA in Industrial Design from the School of Arts and Design, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal; an MA in Industrial Design from Central Saint Martins, UK, and a BA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidade Lisboa, Portugal where he is currently pursuing a PhD in Media Arts.

Patricia Assiss's project terceira pálpebra (third eyelid) brings together a photographic series taken in urban spaces. The monochromatic images appear as a collection of apparently opaque, inert gestures, as if paralysed in an uncertain time, but which simultaneously reveal a city in movement and transformation. Lisbon based, Assiss has a an MA in Culture Studies from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal, and is a Post-Graduate in Contemporary Photography Discourses, Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, where she also achieved a Bachelor in Political Science and International Relations.

Selection committee

Virgílio Ferreira and Jayne Dyer, Co-Artistic Directors, Bienal Fotografia do Porto 2025

Vera Carmo, independent curator