Sharing, risk, tolerance and empathy – these are the four words chosen by Luís Vieira and Rute Ribeiro to define the 25 years of FIMFA Lx – International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms. “We have dreams, ideas and projects, will and courage, but these don’t seem to be the times for dreamers. The world has changed. We need to build new horizons, regain confidence, open up our imagination and let ourselves be carried away by beauty, poetry and the extraordinary. Celebrate the power of puppetry and all these artists who continue to use their power to challenge, inspire and connect us, without borders or colours. This edition celebrates an artistic adventure and pays tribute to all those who share their creativity, their concerns, their ingenuity, their humour and their emotions with us and the audience”, they write about the 25th edition of FIMFA, that takes place from May 8 to June 1.
Over 25 days, there are more than two dozen shows presented by the festival, in several venues in Lisbon. As Rute Ribeiro highlights, this edition brings very different proposals and various creations by women. This is the case of the opening show, at Teatro São Luiz: A Doll’s House, inspired by the play by Henrik Ibsen, staged by Yngvild Aspeli, whose Moby Dick we already saw in the 2021 edition, today considered one of the world’s leading figures in puppetry. A play with human-sized puppets, which she brings to Lisbon with her company Plexus Polaire.
Another adaptation of a classic is The Rite of Spring, by Italians Dewey Dell, which takes the stage at Teatro Variedades, in co-production with Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. “A collective that we have wanted to bring to the festival for a long time”, points out Rute Ribeiro, speaking of these creators (three of them, sons of playwright and director Romeo Castellucci) who stage Stravinsky’s work with insect-inspired costumes.
Also featured is Epidermis Circus: The Weirdest Puppet Show You’ve Ever Seen, by the Canadian company SNAFU – Society of Unexpected Spectacles, that “mixes object theater and live projection, exploring the human body in a surreal and provocative way”. Among the Portuguese artists, there will be shows by A Tarumba (Luís Vieira and Rute Ribeiro present Miniature Short Dramas), the Porto Puppet Theatre, the Limite Zero company, Sonoscopia & Teatro do Ferro and Ricardo Ávila with Vumteatro. In total, there are 13 countries at FIMFA, which show puppetry and animated forms as different as robot vacuum cleaners, flying knives, eggs and chickens (after all, who came first?) or microscopic puppets.
On stage, the performing arts come together with painting, video, science and literature. There almost seems to be no limits. As Rute Ribeiro and Luís Vieira state, “creators from various latitudes, and unafraid to take risks, share their worldview, awaken emotions and questions, through multifaceted and unusual artistic proposals. The invited artists play with feelings, what connects people, their relationship with places and objects. They observe the world. They show other ways of seeing and understanding what is around us”.
25 years later, FIMFA continues to open horizons in Lisbon. “We’re still here!”, its artistic directors assures. And we, with them.
The Italian Film Festival reached the age of majority and, it is confirmed, this 18th edition is, most likely, the most political of all. The motto appears right at the opening session, on April 9 at Cinema São Jorge, with the Portuguese premiere of The Great Ambition (Berlinguer – La grande ambizione). The life of Enrico Berlinguer, founder of Eurocommunism and historic general secretary of the Italian Communist Party between 1972 and 1984, the year of his death, is revisited in the latest work by director Andrea Segre.
For the Festival’s artistic director, Stefano Savio, “Segre’s beautiful film is a tribute to a unique figure in Italian politics, a man who sought to find compromises and consensus between different political forces in the midst of the Cold War”. Starring Elio Germano, the film focuses on the period in the 1970s, between the trip to Sofia, in which Berlinguer suffered an attack that is still shrouded in mystery, and the speech given at Festa dell’Unità in Genoa in 1978, following the assassination of Christian democracy leader Aldo Moro, and which, in a way, signified the failure of the political strategy of the leader of what was, at the time, the largest communist party in Western Europe.
From the 1970s to the 1980s, the closing of the Lisbon edition of the festival – let’s not forget that the Festival travels from one end of the country to the other, and this year it passes through more than two dozen cities on the mainland –, on April 17 also at Cinema São Jorge, is done, according to Savio, with “an Italian-style Boggie Nights” (a reference to the 1997 film by Paul Thomas Anderson).
Premiered at the last Rome Festival, Diva Futura, by Italian-American director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, follows the daily life of Gianni Schicchi’s agency, responsible for the fame of two porn stars who, years later, would shake up Italian politics: Ilona Staller, known worldwide as Cicciolina, founder of the Love Party and ex-wife of American artist Jeff Koons; and Moana Pozzi, who ran for mayor of Rome in the early 1990s.
“Pereira sono io!“
To mark the centenary of il divo Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996), the Italian Film Festival has prepared a special programme that includes, in addition to the film screenings, two photography exhibitions about the career of one of the most famous actors in European cinema.
The first, on display at Cinema São Jorge during the Festival, is entitled Marcello come here… Cent’anni e oltre cento volte Mastroianni [… a hundred years and more than a hundred times Mastroianni] and brings together more than a hundred images, all in large format, from the photographic archive of the Cineteca Nazionale. The second comes as a complement to the screening of Anna Maria Tatò’s documentary, Mi recordo, sì io mi recordo, a “true artistic and spiritual testament” by the actor, shot in Portugal during the filming of his latest feature film: Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo, by Manoel de Oliveira. Through a set of photographs from various national and international archives, the actor’s career in Portugal is revisited, a country where, in addition to Oliveira’s film, he starred, shortly before, in Afirma Pereira, by director Roberto Faenza.
It is precisely to mark the 30th anniversary of the Faenza film, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Antonio Tabucchi, that the Festival opens a section entitled Pereira sono io!, which reflects on the connection that Mastroianni established with Portugal in the final phase of his prolific career. Regarding the title of this programming space, Stefano Savio says that the exclamation “Pereira sono io!” was said by the actor to Tabucchi himself when he finished reading the book and learned of the intention to adapt it for the cinema.
This and other stories can be heard in greater detail on April 16, told by Roberto Faenza. The director will be in Lisbon to attend the screening of the film and the world premiere of the documentary Sostiene Pereira 30, by Augusto Pelliccia, which marks the 30th anniversary of its premiere.
But that’s not all. The Mastroianni centenary brings to the Festival, in national premiere, the new film by Christophe Honoré, Marcello Mio, with Chiara Mastroianni starring in “a surreal comedy where she herself lives as if she were her father”; and the return to the big screen of two of the actor’s emblematic films: 8 1/2, by Federico Fellini, and Una giornata particolare, by Ettore Scola (showing between April 11 and 14 at Cinema Fernando Lopes).
Still on the subject of the dazzling years of Italian cinema, writer and screenwriter Francesco Piccolo, author of the book La Bella Confusione, will be at the Festival on April 12, “to tell episodes that took place in 1963 between the sets of The Leopard [by Luchino Visconti] and 8 1/2 by Fellini, with Claudia Cardinale being fought over by two directors who did not like each other at all”.
The “unknown” Pietrangeli and the focus
on the cinema of Ticino canton
As part of the Festival, the retrospective Antonio Pietrangelie, esse desconhecido, begins on April 1st at Cinemateca Portuguesa, with the screening of Il sole negli occhi. According to the institution’s deputy director, Nuno Sena, “he is one of the great masters of Italian cinema, whose filmography deserves to be placed alongside that of other prominent Italian authors of the 1950s and 60s, but whose premature death will have, in a certain way, become secondary”.
“Filmmaker of women”, for having been “someone who filmed the female condition like few others, simultaneously deconstructing the myths associated with masculinity”, this retrospective consists of the 13 feature films that Pietrangelie directed between 1953 and 1968, the year of his death. Works such as Adua e le compagne, with the French actress Simone Signoret, La Visita, a film that gave Sandra Milo the interpretation of her life, and Io la conoscevo bene, with the unforgettable Stefania Sandrelli, confirm Pietrangelie as “one of the authors who best made the transition between neorealism and commedia all’italiana”.
Another “unknown” highlighted in this edition is Italian-language Swiss cinema. In collaboration with Swiss Film, the Locarno Festival and the Swiss Embassy, the Festival brings to Lisbon the acclaimed documentary on immigration, La prodigiosa trasformazione della classe operaia in stranieri, by Iraqi director Samir, and the disconcerting comedy Bon Schuur Ticino, by Peter Luisi, about a revolt by the people of Ticino against the obligation to speak French. In the section Il Corto, a set of short films originating from this Swiss canton are shown.
In addition to the Panorama section, dedicated to the great successes of Italian cinema from last year, the Festival includes, among others, a competitive section, with first and second works; the Sombras section, which this year combines historical and documentary archives with video art around the Portuguese and Italian decolonization processes; and an unmissable set of opera films, including Mario Martone’s breathtaking vision of Verdi’s La Traviata.
It was at the age of 18 that Armando Martins (b. 1949) began to take an interest in visual arts and collecting, when he acquired silkscreen prints in partnership with a friend. On the day he turned 25, on March 22, 1974, he offered himself his first original work of art: an abstract painting by Rogério Ribeiro.
“It was the colors,” says the collector, adding that “abstract art has one advantage: you look at it and see what you want. And different readings can be taken every day. That’s why I still love this painting as much as I did when I bought it almost 51 years ago.”
Since then, Armando Martins has been acquiring modern and contemporary art for his collection, which is constantly updated. And if until the end of the 90s of the last century the founder only bought pieces by Portuguese artists such as José Malhoa, Amadeo Sousa Cardoso, Santa-Rita, Eduardo Viana, Almada Negreiros, Júlio Pomar, Noronha da Costa, Paula Rego or Julião Sarmento, from 2000 onwards he also began to acquire works of international art.
The desire to found a museum to share his collection with the public began a long time ago, but it was with the private acquisition of the Palácio dos Condes da Ribeira Grande, on Rua da Junqueira, in 2007, that this desire began to take shape. “It only makes sense to have a collection if it is to be displayed. I think this is a path that others should follow, especially because it represents an asset for the city, for the country and for all of us,” he adds.
The different spaces of the Museum, which is also a hotel
Housed in the historic building of the Palácio Condes da Ribeira Grande, which dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, MACAM comprises a total of 13 thousand square meters, two thousand of which are exhibition space. The building’s renovation, carried out by the Portuguese architecture studio MetroUrbe, sought a harmonious relationship between the palace – where the galleries are located on the ground floor and the hotel on the upper floor – and the contemporary extension that houses the museum’s temporary exhibition program.
The façade of this new wing – which won an award at this year’s Surface Design Awards in London – is covered in a series of three-dimensional tiles by artist and ceramist Maria Ana Vasco Costa.The hotel, created as a financing engine and to support the project’s autonomy, has 64 personalized rooms, each offering a unique artistic experience, as each room features works from the MACAM collection, as do the corridor and outdoor terraces.
As it is impossible to exhibit the more than 600 pieces that make up the collection, MACAM will show, for now, around 210, the result of “a curatorial choice, which has to do with the representation of artists and the possible dialogues”, explains Adelaide Ginga, director of MACAM.
The art historian and curator explains how this collection is organized in space: “In the palace, we have two galleries that will show part of the collection permanently. Gallery 1 is dedicated to what was the first core of the collection, formed around Portuguese art, and which has a chronological path through pieces that are highly representative of the history of art from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 1980s. In Gallery 2, which brings together Portuguese and international contemporary art, the organization is no longer chronological, but rather thematic groups, where Portuguese works interact with foreign works.”
Under the motto The House of Private Collections, MACAM will not only showcase its founder’s personal art collection, but will also invite other private collectors to showcase their collections, reinforcing the mission of making them visible to the public. This will take place in the new building, dedicated to temporary exhibitions, which has two rooms that allow for larger-scale works to be displayed.
Confident and happy about what MACAM will bring to the Belém area, where there are other museums such as MAAT or MAC/CCB dedicated to contemporary art, Adelaide Ginga considers the distinction that exists between them to be important, as well as the relationship of complementarity.
The director highlights that “Lisbon lacks a permanent exhibition that represents the evolution of Portuguese art in the 20th century”, and adds: “here at MACAM, with four galleries, it is worth dedicating two of them to a permanent exhibition that allows us to discover contemporary Portuguese art. It’s great for the public to know that a certain collection has a set of emblematic works and to be able to access them.”
The Live Arts Bar in the old chapel
The Live Arts Bar is located in the building’s chapel, dating from the 18th century, desecrated, restored and transformed into a venue for cultural events. The program, aimed at both hotel guests and the general public, aims to energize the entire Junqueira area through performing arts, music and words.
Adelaide Ginga emphasizes that it is “very important that the word once again gains the dimension of a spectacle. We want to stimulate the taste for listening to poems, for reciting them, for getting to know literature and poetry and valuing it in articulation with music, in a careful and intimate environment”.
The opening of MACAM is scheduled for the 22nd, a date that has a special meaning: in addition to being Armando Martins’ birthday, it also coincides with the acquisition of his first original work. The museum’s opening will be marked by three days of events and activities with free entry, to be announced soon.
The exhibition Deconstructing Colonialism, Decolonising the Imaginary. Portuguese Colonialism in Africa: Myths and Realities, conceived and coordinated by historian Isabel Castro Henriques, is based on the premise that in “Portuguese society, characterized by the existence of systemic racism, there are currents of denial of racism resulting from myths associated with Portuguese colonialism, such as Lusotropicalism and the idea of a ‘good’ Portuguese colonialism”.
The exhibition, which aims to present the main lines of force of Portuguese colonialism in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, consequently has, in addition to the purposes of decolonizing the Portuguese imaginary and contributing to a renewal of knowledge about the Portuguese colonial issue, the objective of deconstructing the myths created by colonial ideology, destroying its falsifying nature.
A semicircular exhibition organization presents these fundamental myths and ideas in seven cores:
I – We have been in Africa for 500 years
The idea that Portugal had historical rights in Africa because it had discovered the Black Continent and maintained relations with the African people since the 15th century.
II – Colonizing mission and progress
The myth of the “civilizing mission” based on the idea of biological and civilizing superiority of the white man, associated with the progress of European actions that allowed the enlightenment and transformation of “savage” Africa.
III – Colonial vocation and historical mission
Use of science to construct the myths of the “colonial vocation”, characteristic of the Portuguese “race” and the “historical mission”, to justify the occupation of African territories and consecrate the singularity of Portuguese colonialism.
IV – The Others (Savages) and Us (Civilized)
The idea built on the opposition “primitive or savage”/“civilized or evolved” that legitimized the Luso-African relations of white superiority and black inferiority, as well as the harshness of the practices designed to ensure Portuguese domination over the colonized people.
V – Portuguese Africa
Myth that highlights a vast space that is Portugal in Africa, made up of its colonies, but also its “Portugalization”, where the presence of a Portuguese identity prevails, which is intended to be based on language, culture, organization and daily practices.
VI – The Greatness of the Nation and the Armed Struggle
The idea that “Portugal is not small”, based on cartographic science that showed the greatness of the Portuguese nation that stretched from Minho to Timor, presenting a dimension similar to that of Europe by encompassing all the colonies of the Portuguese empire designated, from the 1950s onwards, as overseas provinces.
VII – Decolonization, Independence and Legacies of Colonialism
Finally, the 13 years of armed struggle, physical and cultural destruction that ended on April 25, 1974, the complexity of the decolonization processes, the phenomena of military and social violence, the return of thousands of returnees and the construction of new political, cultural and economic relations with the new independent States are addressed.
Two central axes structure the exhibition’s narrative. The first is organised in thematic panels, in which text and image are articulated, giving the word to historical knowledge. The second axis aims to “make African works of art speak”, as material evidence of African thought and culture, highlighting the organisational complexity of the social and cultural systems of these societies.
“African artistic productions, especially sculpted and painted forms, material translations of the thoughts and cultures of the populations, integrated into all their daily lives, from domestic practices to the most diverse religious and festive rituals, not only ‘say’ Africa, but also highlight the creative capacity, wisdom, institutional and social rationality and cultural wealth of Africans, contributing powerfully to affirming African identities and civilizing practices”, highlights Isabel Castro Henriques.
This second axis of the exhibition is formed by a selection of 139 works, divided into six themes: symbols of authority; sacralization of life; everyday: work, production, commerce; cultures, arts and techniques; family, social relationships, identity; Africa Europe; cultural syntheses. The works come from the collections of the National Museum of Ethnology, including some pieces on deposit from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the collector Francisco Capelo, and works of contemporary African art by the artists Lívio de Morais, Hilaire Balu Kuyangiko and Mónica de Miranda.
As part of the parallel programme that complements the exhibition, which will be on display until November 2025, the Cinema and Decolonisation cycle will take place at ISEG and the National Museum of Ethnology, with screenings of films related to the post-colonial reality, in addition to other scientific activities, namely conferences and colloquia.
Françoise Vergès, a French political scientist, historian, and specialist in postcolonial studies, wrote in the book Decolonizar o Museu (Orfeu Negro, 2024) “truly decolonizing the museum means putting into practice a ‘program of absolute disorder’, it means making an effort of imagination and creating other ways of narrating and understanding the world, which nourish collective creativity and bring justice and dignity to the populations that have been dispossessed of them”.
Deconstructing Colonialism, Decolonising the Imaginary. Portuguese Colonialism in Africa: Myths and Realities is an important exhibition that takes a firm step forward on that long road ahead.
To respond to this trend, several spaces have been dedicated to promoting courses and workshops, both for beginners and for people experienced in these artisanal practices. But what these spaces offer goes far beyond technical learning; They create true networks of connection and exchange of experiences between participants.
Retrosaria Rosa Pomar
Rua Maria Andrade, 50A / 213 473 090
At Retrosaria Rosa Pomar we are welcomed by lots of color, thanks to the balls of yarn, skeins and fabrics that cover the various tables and shelves in the wide space. The one that is considered a reference in the city for knitting lovers has as its main mission to value the wool of Portuguese sheeps. “Our main focus and difference in relation to other stores is the fact that we make our own yarns, exclusively with wool from sheep of native Portuguese breeds. We have been working for more than a decade to defend these breeds and make the most of this raw material. In addition to working to promote native wool, we have created a series of knitting threads, each different from the other, using wool from different breeds, which we also export abroad,” Rosa tells us.
In addition to selling yarn, the haberdashery also focuses on training, something that has been present since the store’s inception and which arose due to “a gap in the market”. The knitting workshops are taught by herself, but there are more tasks in the textile area to learn or improve, always through traditional techniques, such as crochet, different types of embroidery, tapestry, sewing, among many others. “Teaching people to work with their hands is a very beautiful thing to do. People leave here with a big smile and often proud of a new achievement. The fact of being able to create something with your own hands is a power that has been lost over time, but it is fantastic and brings a lot of joy and well-being.”
Auri Retrosaria
Rua Oliveira Martins, 10E / 961 201 042
Auri is a traditional, old-fashioned haberdashery, where there are balls of wool, spools of thread, sewing kits and all imaginable accessories for needlework everywhere. Founded in 1961, it is more than just a store, it is a place for socializing. Proof of this are the weekly knitting meetings that it promotes and that even extend outwards: “We have a very funny situation, which is the Knitting Museum. Every month, a group of ladies visit a museum and knit in that museum. And we also do weekend retreats. It’s really cool, it’s a fabulous thing”, says Adelina, current owner of the space.
In addition to knitting classes, the store also offers classes in crochet, wool embroidery, patchwork and creative sewing, and as part of the RADAR Project of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, which aims to promote more supportive, communicative and attentive neighborhoods to the population over 65 years old at risk of isolation and unwanted loneliness, it works in an integrated way to contribute to the well-being and better quality of life of these people through teaching knitting. This technique of intertwining the thread is, in fact, Auri’s biggest bet, as Adelina explains: “Our strength is knitting. Every year we go to Jardim Fernando Pessa to celebrate World Public Knitting Day and we also have the Knitting Newspaper, which is published monthly.”
Associação dos Artesãos da Região de Lisboa
Rua de Entrecampos, 66 e 66A / 217 962 497
Since 1982, the Arts and Crafts Workshops of the Lisbon Region Artisans Association (AARL) have been teaching a variety of skills, offering courses in a wide range of areas, such as creative and figurative ceramics, conservation and restoration of crockery, bookbinding, pottery, painting on tiles, furniture restoration, among others. In fact, anyone who enters number 66 on Rua de Entrecampos cannot imagine what the space hides as soon as they go down to the basement. Several workshops equipped with all the necessary materials to develop the most diverse crafts, all with work taking place, which makes this place a place for socializing and sharing. In the textile area, the association offers courses in weaving, embroidery and Arraiolos, where traditional Portuguese techniques are learned.
AARL supports its members in promoting and selling their products, but, according to Carina Trigueiros, “the basis of the association has always been training”. “It is one of our pillars. Training has always been very important in our founder’s goals; reaching people, everyone. Our classes have no age limit, no gender limit, no limit on whether you are a member or not, everyone can participate”, she says. “People come here for many reasons: some come just to learn a little something, some come to distract themselves, others come to learn techniques, to develop their own work. There are even people who, after being here for a while, open their own business and become real artisans”.
FICA – Oficina Criativa
Rua de Arroios, 154B / 913 190 670
The space is very spacious and well lit. There, everything is ready for you to get to work. The 300m2 are open to curious people and professionals who want to learn a trade – through workshops or masterclasses -, or carry out their own projects, either independently or with personalized help – through the Ginásio de Ofícios, a modality where everyone can enjoy the fully equipped workshop with machines and tools to carry them out. A creative space for which the democratization of knowledge and access to technical workshops is a priority, it offers training in areas as diverse as screen printing, carpentry, ceramics and textiles.
Regarding this last manual craft, FICA offers workshops in tufting, punch needle, weaving, embroidery on fabric, introduction to embroidery, tapestry, crochet, smyrna, among others. The objective, according to Rita Daniel, “is to transmit as much as possible what manual techniques and crafts are, trying to have a somewhat pragmatic offer. Although our workshops are focused on transmitting the technique in a very direct and practical sense, we do not want to make the craft and the know-how involved easier; The idea is for people to have knowledge that will allow them to later value the pieces that are made by hand and to value the artisan themselves”.
Artlier
Rua Gervásio Lobato, 47B / 933 932 532
A school of arts and crafts, Artlier brings together knowledge and leisure, presenting itself as a space for sharing knowledge, learning by doing and learning how to do. It is a place to tell stories and tales of people and customs, a place to rescue time and traditions, and it does so through courses and workshops in areas as diverse as textiles, wood, ceramics, painting and drawing. In relation to textiles, Joana Teixeira questions us: “textiles are a world, aren’t they? It’s a little door that opens and is gigantic.”
In this area, Artlier offers training in, among others, classic knitting, crochet, tapestry, Arraiolos embroidery, free embroidery on paper, knitted patching and fabric patching, the latter two being the most recent workshops, and Joana explains why: “The school started in 2002 with furniture restoration and wood restoration. And, over time, more were added, but always with a view to recovery, restoration and repair. Additionally, the mending process combines the environmental importance of a more circular wardrobe and the mental and creative benefits of hand sewing.” The objective of this workshop is to learn ways to recover and intervene in damaged garments, extending their use and giving them more value.
A black cloud throws rays over an office table and there, almost in the shadows, everything is black: the desk, the drawer module, the lit lamp, the swivel chair. Some objects appear to breathe, in a gentle undulating movement that makes them almost alive. The scenery seems wild and, at the same time, cute and comfortable – but, to see Ângela Rocha’s installation, installed on the stage of Culturgest’s Small Auditorium, it’s not enough to look, you have to feel, grope, fumble, move and rummage.
Half of the Minutes, which opened to the public on November 30th and runs until January 5th, is described as a sensory labyrinth. The installation was created by the scenographer for the Portuguese Official Representation, curated by the General Directorate of Arts, at the Prague Quadrennial 2023, one of the largest international visual arts exhibitions. Designed post-covid, it seeks to remind us of the value of touch, countering the idea of danger associated with it during the pandemic and also combating its absence caused by increasingly digital relationships.
“I wanted to value the concept of being present, here and now. In this piece, we have to be present to feel it, it is not enough to see photographs or videos. It is an idea of reconnection with the body, of becoming aware of the body in space. I often evoke the image of the mime game to say that any day all our gestures will be summed up in a finger turning on and off, that this will be the code for everything. And it can’t be. I wanted to praise hands, manuality and their transformative power”, says Ângela Rocha. Hence exactly the name with which she baptized this work, Half of the Minutes, the title of the first graphic diary she made at the António Arroio School, using newspaper clippings. “It was the first time I paid more attention to what my hands were doing and I thought it made sense to return to this idea, reclaiming at least half the minutes to be present and connected to each other and to the earth, and not to the wifi”
“Rare visions of the future” was the motto for the works in that 15th edition of the Prague Quadrennial and positive ideas were also asked to be presented. The 36-year-old set designer, more accustomed to theater shows, made her debut in creating an artistic installation with the idea of setting up a labyrinth that required movement and placed the visitor at the center of the action. “The spectator here has to be the protagonist”, she emphasizes. “Today, the audience is in a place of comfort and distance and, in this piece, I wanted them to be more involved, to come closer and guide themself through stimuli, but deciding for themself. The place is empowering and explorative, for each person to discover, guide themselves and choose the path and interaction they want to make.”
Working for wonder
So let’s enter this maze covered in pink plush. Inside, tight paths await us, as if we were in some kind of automatic car wash lined with luminous fireworks and a mirrored floor. Immersed in a sound environment created by Miguel Raposa Lima, there are paths that lead us to doors, there is one that takes us to a dead end where a heart (almost) capable of exploding awaits us. The idea is to play without fear, lean in wherever we go, interact with what we encounter, try out the different textures and discover that what it seems is not always true. “I would like to work towards those seconds of wonder, when we have not yet started to think about what things are or to catalogue. For me, these moments are pockets of oxygen and I believe we really need that”, says Ângela Rocha, who, in a collaborative approach, invited the visual artists Diogo Costa and Telma Pais de Faria to each think about one of the ways out of the labyrinth, conceiving works there.
The installation, which at the Prague Quadrennial won the public award, PQ Kids, and was previously in Évora, at the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation, is now in the scenographer’s work environment: a stage. However, conceiving it was a challenge, she confesses. “But I like challenges and I liked this format in which the public has access to what I do without the intermediation of actors. It is a direct relationship with the object. I have always been drawn to the truth of materials, that they all have their specific strength. What fascinates me is being able to choose the right material for each thing”, adds Ângela, who started as a scenography and costume assistant at Artistas Unidos and worked, as a scenographer and costume designer, for directors such as Cláudia Gaiolas, Guilherme Gomes, Gonçalo Waddington, João Pedro Mamede, Maria João Luís, Raquel Castro, Ricardo Neves-Neves, Tiago Guedes and Tiago Rodrigues, among many others. In 2025, she will make an installation again, commissioned for a theater outside Lisbon, but she does not reveal further details.
At Culturgest, Half of the Minutes starts before we even go down to the Small Auditorium. At the entrance, we find an object that resembles a fortune teller’s crystal ball, but which is one of those machines from which we can get a surprise in exchange for a 50 cent coin. Inspired by the theme of the Prague Quadrennial and wanting to make the Representation of Portugal a collective gesture, the artist invited anyone who wanted to leave their “rare vision of the future” in a library close to her, from the north to the south of the country.
Contributions were collected and are part of this second installation within the installation. Mirabolante, as it is called, brings “the voice of these people” to those who want to try their luck and buy a plastic ball with a filling. From within, messages left for the future come out, which can take various forms: confetti in the shape of a star, a song that can be heard through a qrcode (such as The Future’s So Bright, by Timbuk 3), a drawing, a key -surprise of a lock that we don’t know what will open, seeds that someone may or may not plant (sharing the responsibility for a common future), flowers such as pansies, a phrase written on paper (“Everyone needs to join hands as quickly as possible to resolve serious problems.”).
“The future wants to be plural and not have a single voice”, believes Angela Rocha, “and the first step to building something is to imagine it”.
“Every time a digital nomad arrives in Portugal, 2 dolphins jump out of the ocean to form the shape of a heart.” The phrase, in English, is accompanied by a matching image and is on one of the stickers spread across the walls of Coruchéus – Um Teatro em cada Bairro. They are reproductions of those that Wasted Rita created in 2022 and named like this: I don’t know how to manifest, so passive aggressiveness and cynicism are my favorite forms of living. The title could serve as a summary for her work and for the exhibition that opens this Saturday, which she named works from before hang out with works from now and works from between before and now, in the same room.
On the day that the first anniversary of Coruchéus is celebrated, the doors open, at 4 pm, of this small exhibition where the artist brings together 37 pieces (“some I wouldn’t even call them pieces, they’re just writings that I usually have on the wall of my studio”) and a video. An archive of works created between 2012 and 2024, which she found relevant for this exhibition. Some older ones were left out, especially about interpersonal relationships, which Rita Gomes considered to be no longer “appropriate”, and also “the good pieces, because they were all sold”, she adds, laughing.
In each one, we recognize her characteristic tone, full of sarcasm, irony, nihilism and acidity. As happened in the exhibition at the Underdogs gallery, last year, Wasted Rita once again highlights the housing crisis in Lisbon. “I think it ends up showing the frustration of living in a city with so much real estate speculation. But it happened unintentionally, without me thinking about it. And it’s even funny because here are works from the time when I moved to Lisbon and when I was still enchanted. Apparently, I can never get rid of my acidity!”, she says. “It’s revisiting my process of disenchantment with Lisbon. At the moment, what connects me to the city is just my studio”, she notes, congratulating herself on having a space, which was allocated to her, four years ago, in Complexo Municipal dos Coruchéus, the group of buildings in Alvalade, created in 1970 for visual artists.
From anguish to escapism
misfortune messages was the first piece she chose to exhibit now: two orange billboards, made at the invitation of GAU – Galeria de Arte Urbana almost 10 years ago, for a project that never progressed. They were never shown on this medium, despite being part of her first exhibition, printed on small pieces of paper kept inside plastic balls that were taken out of a machine in exchange for a coin: “Always be yourself unless you want to have some friends, then always be someone else”; “All you need is a nice-loooking ass and a cool pair of sneakers”.
Almost none of the work is new, points out Rita, as she shows the new pieces on Instagram. However, only three of them have been exposed before. The canvas T.I.R.E.D. – “All my friends are tired and underpaid” –, for example, was created this year and widely shared on social networks (at this point, the post has more than 15 thousand likes). The drawing of Gil, mascot of Expo 98, on top of a dolphin, on a neon yellow background, with the phrase “There’s nothing left to romanticize here” was at the AINORI gallery, in Lisbon, in 2023.
In a display case, there are many of the “writings” coming from the walls of her studio. “These are things that I have there because they make me feel saner and that I wanted to bring here”, she says. Some are just drafts of ideas gathered during the creation processes, sheets of various sizes and from several different notebooks, one of them stepped on, others torn – but all with messages that don’t leave us indifferent, always between laughter and bitterness.
From literal anguish to “the desire for escapism and to seek other opportunities and other paths”, Wasted Rita installed in a corner of Coruchéus, painted yellow, a screen where a video of the installation cure my SAD, plays continuously, presented in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, last year. Two sun loungers and two parasols on a piece of sand were the setting for a virtual reality device where you could see another beach with just beach towels and vibrators. Here, we retain the video within the video of a sunset over the sea where a text with existential reflections on dolphins and sperm whales runs. This work, she described at the time, “invites everyone to relax in relation to the present and worry about the future”. To accompany it, a drawing “thinking about good days, at the beach with friends, drinking coconut water”.
‘Do It Yourself’
Always acid, as she recognizes, Rita Gomes turns her frustrations into incentives for creation – from the distress of finding herself homeless in an increasingly gentrified city to the strange realities she sees around her or the comments she hears on the street. In the window of Coruchéus, she displays one of the most caustic pieces: an advertisement in the form of a comic strip that she invented after, in New York, she was followed along the street by a man who, from the car, repeated to her that she should have left her ass at home because it is very distracting and can cause accidents. “That’s what I’m trying to do: transform all these feelings into stimuli”, she concludes.
works from before hang out with works from now and works from between before and now, in the same room is not in a large gallery, like the ones where Wasted Rita’s works were shown, however, that did not inhibit her. “I started in the mode Do It Yourself and in small spaces and now I have accepted to exhibit again in a place that, for me, makes perfect sense to exist”, she says. It’s almost a return to the beginning, but full of baggage, this archive exhibition, which has free entry and can be visited until January 25, 2025, from Tuesday to Saturday, from 1 pm to 7 pm. On December 7th, the artist will also hold a drawing workshop for children aged five to nine, and three guided tours are scheduled by Lénia Loureiro, on November 30th, 21st December and January 11th (everything requires prior booking).
Three and a half meters by two – they are large, the canvases painted in oil by Joana Villaverde, for the exhibition My pleasure, on view at Pavilhão Branco of Galerias Municipais from October 31st until February 9, 2025. Just one work, a little smaller, is not completely abstract. Vigia represents the view from the artist’s studio, located in the Monastery of São Bento, in Avis, a space provided by the City Council and where Joana founded, in 2018, her Officina Mundi, a place with doors always open. It was there that she created all the pieces she now shows in Lisbon and just by being there this exhibition was born, in which she presents, for the first time, works without any figurative or iconographic expression. “It’s because I had this space and this time that I made these paintings. There is a path that I could never have taken if I hadn’t been in Avis, in this space and in this time. Artistically, I reached a place I didn’t even know was possible,” she says. That’s why she calls My pleasure “a portrait of the privilege of being able to do things in freedom”.
In the paintings she reflects the feeling of plenitude and infinity that comes from being able to work in such a studio, but also a desire to share and relate to the world around her, through brushstrokes made of broad and strong gestures. “As they are abstract, I was free to move in front of those canvases, it was a very important physical movement. I’m small and the canvas are very big, so I really had to use physical strength. It was like a dance or a sport”, she says. “In this process of making, I glimpse infinity. For me a new world.(…) It is the enormous ambition to fill the void with silence”, she writes on the handout sheet.
Reflections of everyday life
Looking out the studio window, she began painting skies and notes of earth at the bottom of the canvas. However, the reality of the world imposed itself and Joana Villaverde, outraged by the attacks in Gaza, ended up covering a canvas in red. “When I finished I was really grumpy. I think it was what I needed to paint, it was what I had to do in light of the ongoing massacre in Palestine, a place I have already visited three times and to which I feel very connected.” She simply called it Red.
Being in Avis, she says, ultimately brings her a greater awareness of the world around her. Far from feeling isolated, she finds that she has more time to listen and pay attention to what is happening. This is also why she created Officina Mundi and opens it to other artists and the population, organizing residencies, exhibitions and meetings frequently. “Sharing this place is essential, because it is too beautiful for just me to enjoy. I am aware of how important it would be for us all to have this right. It doesn’t belong to me, it’s public and that’s how it should be.” For the artist, it all comes down to one idea: “Being together, open, honestly and giving the best we have to each other”.
At the same time and thinking about what led her to paint Red, Joana Villaverde writes on the exhibition sheet: My pleasure turns out to be “the contradiction between freedom and asphyxiation, my freedom and the collapse of humanity”. They are perhaps reflections of her daily life, an expression she uses in this text, and works that she describes as “vertical skies” with the colors she experimented and mixed on the canvas. In one of the other paintings, horizontal, she confesses that she indulged in tones that she previously rejected: purple and lilac. She called it A cena dos violinos (The Violin Scene) because it was also an instrument she didn’t like for many years… until she was willing to listen more carefully. “I’m more calm now,” she admits.
My pleasure is curated by António Pinto Ribeiro. With free entry, it can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 6 pm. Joana Villaverde welcomes you: “It was a pleasure, please come in.”
“Dances between life and death, death and life”, announce the current artistic directors of Alkantara Festival, Carla Nobre Sousa and David Cabecinha, in the opening text of this year’s programme. Lisbon’s historic performing arts festival, founded more than 30 years ago by Mónica Lapa as Danças na Cidade, and since 2005 under its current name, covers a dozen stages, from the institutional CCB, Culturgest, Gulbenkian and São Luiz to the alternative Casa Independente and Espaço Alkantara, passing by Biblioteca Palácio Galveias, Casa da América Latina, Teatro do Bairro Alto and an old office in Marvila, now named Winter Garden.
They arrive from South America, Europe, Africa or the Middle East, and there are more than a dozen artistic manifestations where “lives are heavy with violence, grief, and injustice”, but also the possibility of more “optimistic versions” of future. As programmers, Carla and David believe that, “when the proposals dialogue with each other within the festival, despite so many stories of tiredness and disappointment, there is a possibility for hope”.
Signed by artists originating from the Colombian Amazon, such as Waira Nina, from the inhospitable and wonderful Argentine northwest, such as Tiziano Cruz, or from Africa, such as Mamela Nyamza and her 10 performers of different ethnic origins, the festival comprises more than a dozen excellent shows, two programmes with guest curators, talks, films and “other gatherings”, including a concert dedicated to the music of Gal Costa by Àkila a.k.a Puta da Silva, on November 30, at Casa Independente, in Intendente.
Some highlights
The festival begins at Culturgest, with The Bride and Goodnight Cinderella, by Brazilian artist based in Amsterdam, Carolina Bianchi. When, in 2023, the show debuted, at the Avignon Festival, as the “first chapter” of the Cadela Força Trilogy (which will continue in 2025 and conclude the following year), the debate on gender-based violence and sexual abuse of women gained strong prominence in parallel events to the festival. In question, a disturbing, disconcerting and innovative artistic object that, starting from the story of Pippa Bacca – raped and murdered during the Bride on Tour, a performance in which the Italian artist and feminist traveled, dressed as a bride, between Milan and Jerusalem – begins by going through the history of art, in the format of a lecture where representations and true stories of women who were brutally raped and murdered are discussed.
If, in the first part of the show, discomfort due to the rawness of the narratives sets in, in the second, Bianchi directly challenges the audience to descend into the hell of sexual violence and feminicide, taking a mix of “good night Cinderella”, also known as “rape drug”, and leaving her body vulnerable at the mercy of eight performers.
If Carolina Bianchi and her company Cara de Cavalo promise to mark this edition of the Alkantara Festival, it is with the martyred Middle East in the background that two small treasures arrive to be discovered: The body is here, off screen, by Alia Hamdan (Espaço Alkantara, 19 and 20), and Dear Laila, by Basel Zaraa (Biblioteca Palácio Galveias, from 22 to 30).
When Alia Hamdan presents this performance in Lisbon, we don’t know, but we fear that bombs will continue to fall in her hometown of Beirut and in others in her country. The body is here, off screen is not about the Israeli attacks on the Lebanese capital, but it will be impossible not to think about them when, in front of us, a woman is standing, close to her double, while a voice narrates the strange experience of a time in a coma. The deep state of unconsciousness she fell into began on August 4, 2020, when a very strong explosion in the port area “affected the city as a whole, in a single instant”. According to the author, “this performance is an attempt to portray a frozen temporality, generated by that event”, reflecting on the absence of those responsible and political consequences resulting from this event that swept wide areas of the city, killed more than two hundred people and injured thousands.
As for Basel Zaraa, he was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. His grandparents were expelled from Palestine in 1948, and since then, Zaraa’s family has never received citizenship from any other country. In 2010, this musician and street artist managed to reach the United Kingdom where he settled and became the father of a girl, Laila. One day, his daughter asked where he grew up and why they couldn’t go there. Basel then decided to build a model of his childhood home in Yarmouk, near Damascus, in what became the largest Palestinian refugee camp, now practically destroyed. Dear Laila challenges us to think about how “war and exile define public and domestic spaces”, putting each of us in the shoes of Basel’s daughter, sitting in front of the model of the house, with the headphones of an old walkman, discovering “objects, photos, sounds and smells from the history” of resistance and forced migration of little Laila’s family.
Another highlight of this edition is Nigamon/Tunai (16 and 17, at Teatro do Bairro Alto), a show born from artistic collaboration between indigenous communities in Canada and Colombia. The words that give the title to this “poetic manifesto” both mean “song” in Anishinaabemowin and Inga, respectively. The first, an indigenous language from Canada, where director, writer and actress Émilie Monnet comes from. The second, the language of a people of the same name who inhabit the Colombian Amazon, the birthplace of Waira Ninga, an interdisciplinary artist who co-signed, with her Canadian friend, a “performance piece” where the territories of both – the north and the south – intertwine in a “valuable exchange fueled by living knowledge, the cosmogonies and the struggles that unite them”. Among these struggles, the fact that, in the territory of the Inga people, oil and mining companies are destroying entire ecosystems to plunder resources. Namely, copper, a fundamental mineral for the Anishinaabe culture in Canada, where these same predatory companies thrive.
Inevitable, even more so when the issue of immigration continues to mark the media agenda, Keli Freitas’ most recent creation Go Back To Where You Came From (21 to 23, at São Luiz Teatro Municipal). In this biographical piece, the Brazilian artist shares the process of self-discovery triggered when she set out in search of the trail of her great-grandmother Virgínia, Portuguese, born in Torres Vedras. Having been in Portugal for seven years, Keli assumes her status as an immigrant to question what it means to be a citizen of a country, how to exercise citizenship rights, how to define whether a land belongs to this or that country. Flanked on stage by Ana Gigi, a friend she met in Portugal and who also has a history of migration in her genealogy, the show offers a reflection on this condition, challenging established concepts of belonging and identity.
Two guest programmes
Fire Letters, by Terra Batida platform, and Transmisson, by BRABA.plataforma, are two curatorships invited by Alkantara Festival for this edition.
At Casa da América Latina, on November 29 and 30, Terra Batida, directed by Ritó Natálio, proposes “a dialogue with contemporary indigenous thought”, through a session featuring Fire Letters, a reading-performance by Ellen Pirá Wassu, indigenous poet from the Wassu Cocal people, and Ritó Natálio, writer and performer, and the performance of indigenous Amazonian trans artist Uýra Sodoma, The interest in the Amazon is not the damn trees.
BRABA.plataforma, directed by Gaya de Medeiros, presents its third showcase, entitled Transmission, with three creations that “look at memory through very different perspectives, yet all of them draw narratives in the present that shift our perception of the identities and histories of the people we see on stage”: Brief Notes on Digestion, by dai ida, Raw Eggs, by Artemis Chrysostomidou, and the aforementioned concert by Àkila a.k.a Puta Da Silva, Da Maior Importância.
Until December 1st, there is still to see Wayqeycuna, by Tiziano Cruz, “a raw look at the art market and class privilege” (CCB, 16 and 17); Hatched Ensemble, by Mamela Nyamza, a deconstruction of classical dance, which combines ballet, African and contemporary dances (Teatro São Luiz, 16 and 17); the dinner-performance with utopias on the menu by Sonya Lindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim, We Should All Be Dreaming (CAM Gulbenkian, 23 and 24); the acclaimed The Secret Life of Old People, by Mohamed El Khatib, where a cast over 80 takes on what it’s like to experience sexual desire in old age (Culturgest, 23 and 24); 52 Blue, performance by Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti inspired by the behavior of whales (TBA, 23 to 26); and Mike, a durational performance about a day of work in an office by renowned performer Dana Michel (November 29, 30 and December 1, in Marvila). Mention also goes to the screening of the films Side Trip, by the Japanese collective Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group, filmed in Marvila a year ago (CAM Gulbenkian, 27 and 30), and Blackface, the documentary, by Heverton Harieno about the show of the same name by Marco Mendonça (Espaço Alkantara, December 1st). Out of doors, at Casa da Dança, in Almada, dancer and choreographer Vânia Doutel Vaz opens doors to the process of creating Violetas, a show to be presented in the 2025 edition of the festival (November 30).
In short, living up to the meaning of its name, Alkantara has been “building bridges between artists and audiences, between geographies, cultures and artistic expressions” for more than three decades, and this year will be no different. Especially because, looking at the state of the world, they have never been so indispensable and urgent.
The friendly managers of four spaces in Lisbon present below some of the treasures of national gastronomy.
Pastelaria Condes da Praia
After joining, as partners, to the own-made bakery and confectionery, Saquinho Dourado (located in Cascais and Caxias), Fabíola Landeiro and husband António Sales Nobre wanted to invest in something different related to Azorean sweets.
They chose the lesser-known cheesecake – Conde da Praia – because it was Fabíola’s favorite and because it was linked to her birthplace (the city of Praia da Vitória, on Terceira Island). Anita Rocha, confectioner who created the original recipe, was another important ally in introducing the delicious sweet to the world.
This was the starting point for, recently, opening a new pastry shop in Lisbon managed by Paula Mousinho and which is the only space in the capital that sells queijadas and where you can also find other traditional Azorean products such as bolos lêvedos (sweet bread) or Abelhinha liqueurs, made with honey-based wine brandy.
Largo da Graça, 98
Mercearia Alentejano do Bairro
The best of Alentejo can be found in the Benfica neighborhood, in a grocery store that has existed for several years and was owned by an Alentejo native. In 2021, when the former owner wanted to leave the establishment, Edgar Marim, also from Alentejo, born in Mina de São Domingos, decided to take over the business and invest in an old dream: selling products from his homeland.
The clientele is very varied, there are even those who come specifically from Barreiro to buy products that they no longer find not even in Alentejo. In this small but very welcoming space, the difficult part is choosing between the many specialties: Alentejo pies, torresmos do rissol, bread dough cakes, costas de torresmos, Gila bolêma, sericaia, cheeses, homemade jams, sausages, wines and bread , which arrives every day from different parts of Alentejo.
Estrada de Benfica, 522B | T.933 836 478
Charcutaria Pitéu Transmontano
Situated in a busy area, this traditional delicatessen, specializing in cured meats and sausages made with local ingredients and centuries-old artisanal methods, has been around for over a decade. Sara Lopes and her boyfriend João Martinho are, however, the most recent owners of the space that belonged to a cousin.
Sara has family roots in the Trás-os-Montes village of Macedo de Cavaleiros and João has always been linked to agriculture. This fact, combined with the desire to help small producers and the region of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, led them to invest in the project.
Of the many delicacies on sale, smoked products stand out – alheiras, butelos, sour and hams from Mirandela, Vinhais and the Barroso Region -, meat from Mirandesa, pastries from Chaves, covilhetes from Vila Real, shells or chasubles and also bread, olive oil, wine, cheese, chestnuts and Trás-os-Montes sour cherry and cherry liqueurs.
Largo Dona Estefânia 6A | T.910 947 215
Mercearia Poncha LX
After many trips to Madeira, Tiago Milheiro and Ricardo Costa, long-time friends, decided to bring the best Madeiran delicacies to Lisbon. The recent space, open since May this year, offers a selection of traditional sweets, such as honey and butter broas, paciências, beer sticks, different varieties of honey, anise candies, the iconic honey cake, tasty cheesecakes and , of course, Madeira wine and poncha.
When manager Joana Pires joined the team, the menu was enriched with “dentinhos”, free snacks that accompany drinks: seasoned lupins and peanuts, spicy sausage, bean salad or seasoned cheese. There are also pregos of beef and fresh tuna with onion and Madeira wine and Nikitas, a refreshing drink that combines ice cream with passion fruit or pineapple.
Here, all products originate from the “island of flowers”, from bottled water to soft drinks, even Coral beer.
