Open Call – Imagination Laboratory 2025
Plantário
From October 2025 to January 2026, we invite you to take part in the ‘Imagination Laboratory’, which brings together young people in a platform of thought-action, with Alfredo Martins and Sara Duarte, associate artists of ‘teatro meia volta e depois à esquerda quando eu disser.’
Are you aged between 18 and 25? Would you like to take part in a laboratory of experimentation, thinking and creation with artists whose work spans different disciplines? Are you interested in bodily and fictional practices related to the collective imagination?
The ‘Imagination Laboratory’ is a platform for experimentation, developed by a group of young people and interdisciplinary artists, which aims to explore new forms of thinking and acting in relation to the challenges of the present, and to imagine other possible futures.
As a starting point for the fourth edition of this project, artists Alfredo Martins and Sara Duarte propose to work as a group to construct a space, a habitable mesocosmos, in which to discuss urgent needs and imagine collective ways of becoming. The programme calls on contributions from various areas: spatial and artistic practices, natural and social sciences, technology and activism.
Throughout the process, the project benefits from collaboration between artists and people from the area of research, including Colectivo Warehouse (space), Ana Corrêa (biology), Rodrigo Pereira (linguistics), Maria Remédio (visual arts and video), Joana Mário (lighting), João Bento (sound) and Sara Marques de Oliveira (make-up).
Each session sets experimental challenges (performative, sensory, visual and others) that aim to spark fictional and speculative processes. The laboratory is a plural space, open to a diverse spectrum of people, life experiences, know-how and interests, as well as a territory in which unexpected collaborations and unpredictable learning can arise.
The laboratory will last a total of 45 hours, spread over 15 sessions (see session dates below), the last of which, put together by the group with a focus on the process, will share the project with the public. Applicants must be available to participate in at least 12 sessions.
Participation is free. Applications can be submitted until 5 October. Participants must attend the open information session on 8 October. Applicants will be contacted via email by 12 October to inform them of the results of the selection.
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Introduction by the artists
‘Plantário’ is a possible world. A world yet to be built. A space of commonality. ‘Plantário’ is a territory of imagination, a series of speculative gestures that ponder forms of existence still to come.
The world as we know it, constructed under the advent of neo-liberalism, is failing. The destruction of ecosystems, deterritorialisation and deregulation of production processes, the socio-environmental externalities of economic growth, the naturalisation and administration of bodies as a response to the (re)productive imperative – all these invisible forces attest to the ruin of a deregulated patriarchal capitalist system that, day by day, produces and handles millions of refugees (human and non-human) who have no shelter.
There is an urgent need to mourn, to weep for the irreversible losses and, from there, find ways, even if only modest, to achieve partial recovery. Whoever or whatever we are – humans, animals, machines, objects – we need to find spaces that allow us to think-feel together. We must encourage the capacity for disagreement, tolerate dissent, contradiction and difference, so that we don’t fall into infantilising consensus and oppressive uniformity. We need to reject mindsets of supremacy and socio-economic, technological and cultural domination. We need spaces for resistance and counter-production, to experiment with the unpredictability and heterogeneity of nature.
In this laboratory, our aim is to experiment with different discourses / devices / technologies, which will contribute to a collective, dynamic and porous creative process, giving every participant the potential to explore and promoting the ongoing need to pluralise and diversify forms of thinking and knowing, a prerequisite to increase our ability to imagine and comprehend transformative futures.
Alfredo Martins and Sara Duarte
Conditions for participation and frequently asked questions
What are the requirements for applicants?
What is the open information session on 8 October?
In this session, we will start some of the practices and answer any questions about what is involved in the laboratory. Participation is mandatory and non-attendance will exclude you from potential selection.
When will I find out if my application has been selected?
You will be contacted by email by 12 October.
I live outside Lisbon. Can I take part?
This is an in-person laboratory. Participants who live outside Lisbon must ensure that they are available to take part and able to get to the venue themselves.
How much time do I need to commit?
The laboratory will last for a total of 45 hours, spread over 15 sessions (see session dates). Applicants must be available to participate in at least 12 sessions.
What are the session dates?
8, 15, 22 and 29 Oct 2025
5, 12 and 19 Nov 2025
3, 10 and 17 Dec 2025
7, 14, 21, 27 and 28 Jan 2025
Session times: 18:00 – 21:00
Is there a final presentation?
At the session on 28 January, there will be a session to share with the public, in a format to be decided by the participants in the Laboratory and the artists.
If I complete the programme, will I receive a certificate?
Yes, those who complete the programme will receive a certificate of participation.
Are the sessions held in Portuguese?
Yes, the sessions will be held in Portuguese. We recommend a basic level of Portuguese comprehension, but participants can express themselves in other languages.
Where will the sessions take place?
The sessions will mostly take place at CAM, although some might be held outdoors.
I have no background in the arts and no artistic experience, can I take part?
Yes. All you need is to be ready and willing to participate, no prior experience is required.
Will I be paid for taking part?
No, this project is educational, there is no remuneration.