The artists nominated by

Bienal Fotografia do Porto

2025

The Ci.CLO Plataforma de Fotografia / Bienal Fotografia do Porto nominations for 2025 Futures Platform are Inês Quente, Emanuel Constantino, Jessica Gaspar, João Bragança Gil and Patricia Assis.

The five Portuguese emerging artists represent independent conceptual and material trajectories in the expanded field of photography. The curatorial team identified innovative investigations that address aspects of contemporary life and the built and natural environments. The artists’ portfolios investigate the role of documentary photography and notions of what comprises ‘reality’ in the captured or recorded image; the place of the archive in relation to the fictive space where liminal states can be characterized as transitional and intermediate: pictorial language re-imagined, media manipulated and deconstructed.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Selection committee

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

Vera Carmo, independent curator

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Projects nominations

Artist

Patrícia Assis

Patrícia Assis (1993, Algarve) is a Lisbon-based visual artist working with photography.‍ With an academical background in Political Science and International Relations (B.A., FCSH-UNL, Lisbon), Culture Studies (M.A., FCH-UCP, Lisbon) and Discourses of Contemporary Photography (post-graduation, FBAUL, Lisbon), her artistic practice reflects upon these various fields of interest - focusing on urban spaces and their mutations, as well as the relationship we establish with different geographies. Working either as symbols, cultural references or mere instances of contemplation, the images are not intended to be documental-based on subjective experience, they suggest various narrative possibilities, sometimes more descriptive, other times more poetic.‍ In 2024, Assis self-published the photobook ‘terceira pálpebra’, named after the series presented in the group show ‘Banho de Paragem’ (2024, Collectif, Lisbon).She is one of the co-founders of colectivo ssensível.

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Artist

João Bragança Gil

João Bragança Gil (Lisbon, 1989) is an artist, based in Lisbon, Portugal. Attended the Painting course at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon between 2008 and 2010; Graduated in Industrial Design in 2013 from Escola Superior de Artes e Design. In 2014, Bragança Gil moved to London, graduating in MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins UAL in 2016. In 2019 Bragança Gil, moved to Lisbon, and started practicing fine arts full-time. Currently he’s pursuing a Media Arts PhD at Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon.‍Recent exhibitions include “Drop me in the river, Dip me in the water!” (2021) at Galeria Pedro Cera; “The sun, the oldest, the sheep, as the origin (on and on) and the klecks klecks” (2021), by Sismógrafo at Casa das Artes, Porto; “CODA” (2022) at Buraco, Lisbon, “Uncertain Strata” at EGEU; “Estudo do Meio”, Carpintarias de S. Lázaro; “Midnight Sun”, Mono. Recidency at Arquipélago — Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, São Miguel, with FetArt (France) and CiCLO (Portugal). In 2023, Bragança Gil presented “Artificial Paradises” (2023) a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Science and Natural History, resulting from more than two years of research.‍In 2024, participated in the group exhibition “Entre Margens” curated by João Pinharanda and the group show “Passages” at Galeria Encounter; and the solo exhibition “Trouble in Paradise” at (Projectspace) at the Encounter and Jahn und Jahn Gallery, in Lisbon.

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Artist

Jéssica

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.

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Artist

Inês Quente

Inês Quente (1992, Avintes, Portugal) is a visual artist who lives and works between Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto.
She has a master's degree in Documentary Filmmaking from the University for the Creative Arts (UK, 2017) and a degree in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (PT, 2015).
She was a grantee of the Culture Moves Europe (2024), a program funded by the European Union and the Goethe Institut.
Her practice navigates themes of ecology, memory and transformation.
She showcases her work regularly since 2013, both nationally and internationally, such as her latest individual site-specific installation For Every Light Its Place, at Gallerí Úthverfa, in the city of Ísafjörður (ISK, 2024).
She took part in the ArtsIceland international artistic residency (ISK, 2023 and 2024) and Grão research and artistic residency (PT, 2023).

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Artist

Emanuel Constantino

Emanuel Constantino (b. 2002), Portugal, is an independent photographer currently living in Porto. He has a degree in Photography from School of Media Arts and Design, in P.Porto. He is currently studying for a Master's Degree in Cinema and Photography - Specialization in Photography - at the same institution. ‍He is interested in the practical process of photography in analog format and the unpredictability of the results it offers. His main focus of research and authorial creation is on the universe of documentary and fiction, in their various intersections and interactions. He seeks to understand and manipulate the boundary at which documentary ceases to be and begins to assert itself as fiction, and vice versa, in their mixture. Vernacular and archive photography are also areas he explores and addresses, often integrating them into his projects.

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