Cri_Lab I (2023-2025)
Team: Henrique Andrade
Invited participants: Catarina Almeida, Inês Nascimento, Lorenzo Iannizotto, Joana Nunes, Tiago Rorke
Location: Escola Secundária Marquês de Pombal,
Lisbon, Portugal
Cri_Lab is an experimental laboratory at the intersection of visual arts, architecture, education and spatial research. Conceived in 2023 within doctoral research in Architecture at DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte, it has been developed in collaboration with Escola Secundária Marquês de Pombal in Lisbon. Its first two editions took place across two school years, between 2023 and 2025, involving students aged 15 to 20 from Visual Arts and vocational Communication Design and Multimedia courses, alongside teachers, artists, architects and researchers.
Through weekly sessions integrated into formal secondary education, Cri_Lab invited students to critically observe, interpret and intervene in their school environment. Drawing, photography, writing, stop motion, installation, cyanotype, monotype and other art- and design-based practices were used not only as forms of representation, but as methods of inquiry, knowledge production and spatial action. Following a participatory action-research approach, each edition developed through cycles of experimentation, reflection and adaptation, prioritising the process of learning by doing over predetermined outcomes.
Cri_Lab explores the intersections between different fields and forms of knowledge: practice and research, institution and territory, education and transformation, science, design and art. These relationships become material for artistic research, developed collaboratively with students through processes of observation, experimentation, dialogue and collective production.
The first edition established the school as a living laboratory in which everyday spaces, routines and relationships could be made visible and questioned. The second edition, developed with a new group of students, continued and expanded this work, informed by the methods, observations and results of the first iteration. Across both editions, students produced drawings, photographs, texts, installations, collective reflections and situated interventions that approached the school as both an educational institution and a microcosm of the city.
Cri_Lab was foundational to Not Yet. Developed before the association was formally established, the project fostered the encounters, collaborations and shared lines of inquiry that contributed to its formation. As an experimental field of action, it helped shape the direction that Not Yet would later pursue across art, architecture, education and research, establishing a commitment to process-oriented, experimental practices grounded in learning by making.
Through weekly sessions integrated into formal secondary education, Cri_Lab invited students to critically observe, interpret and intervene in their school environment. Drawing, photography, writing, stop motion, installation, cyanotype, monotype and other art- and design-based practices were used not only as forms of representation, but as methods of inquiry, knowledge production and spatial action. Following a participatory action-research approach, each edition developed through cycles of experimentation, reflection and adaptation, prioritising the process of learning by doing over predetermined outcomes.
Cri_Lab explores the intersections between different fields and forms of knowledge: practice and research, institution and territory, education and transformation, science, design and art. These relationships become material for artistic research, developed collaboratively with students through processes of observation, experimentation, dialogue and collective production.
The first edition established the school as a living laboratory in which everyday spaces, routines and relationships could be made visible and questioned. The second edition, developed with a new group of students, continued and expanded this work, informed by the methods, observations and results of the first iteration. Across both editions, students produced drawings, photographs, texts, installations, collective reflections and situated interventions that approached the school as both an educational institution and a microcosm of the city.
Cri_Lab was foundational to Not Yet. Developed before the association was formally established, the project fostered the encounters, collaborations and shared lines of inquiry that contributed to its formation. As an experimental field of action, it helped shape the direction that Not Yet would later pursue across art, architecture, education and research, establishing a commitment to process-oriented, experimental practices grounded in learning by making.
Henrique Andrade, 2026
More info:
PhD Thesis [in the works]
Fostering Critical AI Literacy Through Art Assignments: Looking to the Future with My Dear Colleague GPT [in the works]
(2025) Critical Spatial Practice in the context of art education: The Cri_Lab sessions conducted at Marquês de Pombal School, in Lisbon
(2025) Students photograph, seagulls fly: A comparison between “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and photography used as a pedagogical design research methodology in the Cri_Lab workshop
(2025) The pedagogy of failure in experimental art processes: cyanotype and monotype as methods to foster creativity and build up artistic confidence
Support:
Cri_Lab’s research activities were supported by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon and DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte. In addition to the artists, researchers and practitioners invited to collaborate in the design of specific programme sessions, the project benefited from the support and collaboration of Lisbon Drawing Club, Fab Lab Lisboa, Fragmentos architecture studio, Mill Makers collective and Escola Secundária Marquês de Pombal.
This research work was also supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. by project reference 2024.04693.BD and DOI identifier https://doi.org/10.54499/2024.04693.BD.
Cri_Lab’s research activities were supported by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon and DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte. In addition to the artists, researchers and practitioners invited to collaborate in the design of specific programme sessions, the project benefited from the support and collaboration of Lisbon Drawing Club, Fab Lab Lisboa, Fragmentos architecture studio, Mill Makers collective and Escola Secundária Marquês de Pombal.
This research work was also supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. by project reference 2024.04693.BD and DOI identifier https://doi.org/10.54499/2024.04693.BD.