BIOGRAPHY
Orlando Vieira Francisco is a visual artist and researcher (i2ADS). Brazilian, he has lived and worked in Porto, Portugal, since 2012. After graduating from civil engineering in 2018, he completed a Ph.D. in Art and Design at FBAUP. He investigated how authoritarian policies are present in urban infrastructure, symbolic monumentalities and institutional structures. In 2014, he held an MA in Art and Design for the Public Space on political expressions of multitudes in public space.
He is an integrated junior researcher at the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS), Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (FBAUP), where he’s responsible for the management of different projects and a member of the editorial board of HUB – Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society. He participated in the Municipal Ateliers program organized by the Porto City Council between 2020 and 2023 and the research group The Spatial Cluster.
Since 2023, he has been working on coordinating the transnational project “From the Top of the Mountains We Can See Invisible Monuments” (FCT – CEEC 5th Edition ). He works within the themes of the production of social space between art and politics, the landscape as a concept of constant change, and practices of environmental and social activism.
Academic CV
2023 – ongoing // Researcher. i2ADS / Porto, Portugal.
2018 // Ph.D. in Art and Design. FBAUP / Porto, Portugal.
2014 // MA in Art and Design. FBAUP / Porto, Portugal.
2011 // BA of Civil Engineering. PUCPR / Curitiba, Brazil.
Past Exhibitions, Performances and Art Residencies
_ The landscape between us, Maus Hábitos, Porto, Portugal, 2025.
_ Belonging < the Space > of Togetherness, FLUCC, Vienna, Austria, 2025.
_ Cross-Country Migration, Wagen Projects, Bregenz, Austria, 2025.
_ E lá no fundo, o que é que tem, Festival Alkantara, Lisboa, Portugal, 2023.
_ From the Top of Mountains We Can See Invisible Monuments, artistic residency, wpZimmer, Antwerp, Belgium, 2023.
_ Compulsive Desires: The Extraction of Lithium and Rebellious Mountains, collective exhibition, Galeria Municipal, Porto, Portugal, 2023.
_ Valise Carton, collective exhibition, Guimarães, Portugal, 2022.
_ It’s already night / no light above the horizon, artistic residency, Samenschool, Antwerp, Belgium, 2021.
_ Seeds and Multitude – Genova 2001 20 years after, artistic residency, Fisga Space, Porto, Portugal, 2021.
_ Do Alto da Montanha Pode-se Ver Monumentos Invisíveis, Satellite program of the Porto Design Biennale, 2019.
_ Aparelho, collective exhibition, Maus Hábitos, Porto, Portugal, 2019.
_ Cave Canem, Ph.D. Exhibition, FBAUP Museum, Porto, 2018.
_ Incerta Desambiguação, collective exhibition, Galeria Zaratan, Lisbon, 2017.
Talks, Readings and Classes
_ “Let’s see what was unseen / Ver o que não foi visto”, 9º Encontro Internacional sobre Educação Artística, Universidade do Porto, Portugal, 2025.
_ “Walking on the Plateau. Towards the artistic-based research when inserted in the Infrastructural Critique and the climate crisis context”, Hurricanes and Scaffoldings: Symposium on Artistic Research, Umeå Universitet, Sweden, 2024.
_ “The Observers’ Plateaus. Introducing the impasses of Ecology and Geology through Artistic Research”, 8th International Conference on Artistic Research and Arts-Based Research, Facultar d’Educació i Psicologia, University of Girona, Spain, 2024.
_ “Tracing the Mountain. Reflexões gráficas no contexto da Crítica Infraestrutural e a crise climática”, Seminário Desperfilar as Artes Visuais, o Objeto Enlouquecedor e o Movimento das Coisas, i2ADS, Porto, 2024.
_ “O planalto dos observadores: uma análise sobre o conceito de overview e dos ecossistemas submetidos à produção capitalista”, Montanha Mágica* Arte e Paisagem, Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal, 2023.
_ “Matchundadi: Gender, Performance and Political Violence in Guinea-Bissau” by Joacine Katar Moreira, for Leituras Feministas, FBAUP, Porto, 2021.
_”Arte e Ação Ativista”, for Estudos da Arte Moderna e Contemporânea em Licenciatura em Artes Plásticas, FBAUP, Porto, 2019.
_”Do Alto da Montanha Pode-se Ver Monumentos Invisíveis”, Satellite program of the Porto Design Biennale, 2019.
_”Barragem, rebentamento, contaminação e resistência”, The Oblique Think Tank #1, Porto, 2019.
_”Descolonizando a Cartografia nas Artes Visuais através do Ativismo Ambiental”, colóquio “A imaginação do futuro. Saberes, experiências, alternativas”, Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra, 2018.
_”Além do Arquivo”, colóquio “Arte pública na era da criatividade digital”, Universidade Católica, Porto, 2017.
_”Art and Activism”, Espaço T, Porto, 2015.