You look for yourself, but suddenly, you are everywhere.

Your image multiplies endlessly, slipping beyond your control.

You are no longer the one catching your reflection. Kusama, in a way, makes fun of you perhaps of our obsession with seeing ourselves.

When Serralves Museum in Porto displayed Kusama’s exhibition in 2024, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see her work up close and absorb as much of it as possible.

Lucky for the Portuguese, Kusama’s exhibition at Porto’s Serralves Museum gave us the opportunity not only to see her art, but also to discover, through successful curating, her inspiring life story.

Her hallucinations, which followed her throughout her life, gave us the polka dots she saw in the sun, the moon and everywhere around her, as well as the spheres and endless similar patterns she tirelessly painted relentlessly.

When she passed away in Tokyo at the age of 97 last week, we also saluted a woman who represented

a life full of lessons.

At a time when women often had no name, she printed hers in golden letters in the history of art. Despite all the ills that life gave her, she chose to be a woman who struggled, resisted and refused to disappear.

In the end, her adieu was the adieu of a victorious woman.

She broke society’s rules. She challenged politics, convention and the ever-masculine art world.

And who was behind this victorious story? Another woman.

It was the encouragement of another monumental woman, Artist Georgia O’Keeffe, that helped lead Kusama to leave Japan and move to New York in 1957.

Her interaction with Georgia O’Keeffe opened a new horizon for her. Kusama had the courage to write to the already established American artist asking for advice. O’Keeffe did not throw the letter in the bin. Instead, she took the time to write back and tell her: “Go.”

Kusama took the advice. And so began her life in New York.

It was not an easy haul.

In 1966, she invaded the garden of the Venice Biennale with 1,500 small mirrored spheres, selling them for two dollars each under a banner that read, “Your Narcissism for Sale.” Eventually, Biennale staff threw her out.

Twenty-seven years later, she returned to the Venice Biennale, this time officially representing Japan.

Her career was shadowed by popular male artists of her time who copied her work, her style, her phallic sculptures. The injustice and lack of recognition pushed her to an attempted suicide.

In 1973, she returned to Tokyo, and four years later she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.

From there, she devoted her days to making art until her final days.

If there was one word to define her, in addition to her extraordinary artistic talent, it was “courage.” She did not allow the male-dominated art world to tarnish her.

Born into a patriarchal society, and under the thumb of an abusive mother who forced her daughter to witness her father’s sexual encounters with his mistress, Kusama learned early in life about the darker side of human behavior. Yet she transformed that darkness into art.

She was a freedom fighter, a peace activist and a supporter of human rights.

She faced her mental illness with courage and, rather than hiding her hallucinations, shared them with the world.

The dots that appeared in her visions became the polka dots that would eventually color our lives.

When you leave a legacy, this is the kind you want to leave.

Kusama said she did not fear death, it was “merely stepping into the next room.” “Living and dying are one and the same,” she wrote in her biography.

But for us, her admirers, death is not the same. Because death has left us without her new art, without the possibility of wondering what world she would have created next.

With her death, an era closed.

In July, the festival attracted more than 10,000 people on its 12th anniversary. More than 40 classical concerts were performed. On the daily schedule, the first concert usually starts at 11 a.m., while the last one is scheduled for 11 p.m. It is a rich collection featuring works by all the masters of classical music, while also introducing audiences to some contemporary composers.

When there is no music, silence takes over Marvão. That was exactly what inspired Poppen and his wife soprano Juliane Banse to add music to this quietness after they spent time in their second home in the village of just around 100 year-around inhabitants.

For Poppen, space was not an issue in the minuscule village. The musicians, mostly international, perform in an antique Roman amphitheatre, churches and even in the underground water reservoir.

One of the highlights of the night concerts happens in the 1st-century Roman ruins of Ammaia under the blazing stars.

President António José Seguro followed his predecessor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s tradition and attended the Ammaia concert, which premiered young Chinese composer Alice Yeung’s impressive concerto for cromatic harmonica, piano jazz and orchestra. Those who flooded the event were also foreign ambassadors from Lisbon.

The festival is a dream come true for the couple.

Now the couple has another dream, and a much bigger one.

Poppen says the reason the festival is scheduled each year at the end of July is because they are restricted by the weather to avoid rain. “We want to play all year round and attract even bigger audiences.”

He is contemplating a project to build an auditorium that could attract concerts and conferences throughout the year, while also creating a space for visual arts.

The dream is shared with award-winning renowned architect Manuel Aires Mateus.

‘’I have already done some sketches,’’ Mateus told me enthusiastically. ’’It will be built with the same stones of the city walls and it will be designed like a timeless project, taking advantage of the fantastic view of the landscape.’’

His plan is to build a 550-seat auditorium, with the right dimensions to create perfect acoustics, and also include a walking path in nature with a museum integrated to carry rotating exhibitions. Gulbenkian is already showing interest in being part of the museum and join the concerts with its symphony.

The municipality has already allocated the land for the project, large enough to accommodate a 2,000-square-meter building.

It is at the foot of the village next to the Igreja Nossa Senhora da Estrela, which dates back to 1488. “It is a fantastic area,” Poppen says.

The estimated cost of the project is €50 million.

When you think about it, it is not that much money for a project that could transform the cultural landscape of the region.

‘’The value of the project is already there with the festival. It is already a proven success,’’ Mateus said.

‘’We can do what the Guggenheim Museum did for Bilbao for Marvão and put it on the map with visual arts and music combined,” Poppen said.

Poppen is trying all channels: private investment, public funding and European funds.

If money is found, it would take four years to build.

Who knows, by then, when Portugal is hosting the 2030 World Cup, a majestic art centre, a short drive from the Spanish border, may put another crown on this country.

This article was published in Portuguese in Dairio de Noticias on August. 18,2026: https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/quando-sonhas-sonha-em-grande

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Hegseth said the zero-tolerance approach to testosterone deficiency was an initiative designed to restore and optimize military readiness and protect “longevity.”

His remarks have already sparked controversy in the United States, with medical experts warning of the potential health risks associated with such a policy.

What caught my attention, however, was the word that surfaced once again: longevity.

Is the formula for longevity really that simple? Pump up the testosterone.

Longevity is often mistaken for simply living longer, rather than extending one’s healthy lifespan, promoting healthy aging, and developing policies to integrate an increasingly older population into society.

Lifespans have already nearly doubled over the course of the 20th century.

Antibiotics, vaccines, advances in medicine, preventive healthcare, greater awareness of exercise, and anti-smoking campaigns have all contributed to this progress.

Average life expectancy at birth in Portugal has reached approximately 82.9 years. It exceeds that of the United States by about four years.

Portugal’s average life expectancy was 73.2 years in 1985, and just 61 years in 1950.

This requires revisiting policies at every level, perhaps starting with “how to cope with the silver economy.”

And let me remind you it is a far more serious concept than the one cosmetic clinics eagerly attach to their branding.

Prof. , Director of the Center on Longevity Leadership at Universidade Catolica, tackles exactly this issue.

She points to the fact that workers aged 65+ in Portugal have more than doubled over the last decade, reaching 244,800, while the 55–64 age bracket grew by 68% to 1.05 million people. The growth is more than three times that among workers under 35.

According to Abecassis-Moedas, the catch is the need to “shift the conversation from wellness to productivity and leadership.”

‘’The uncomfortable part is that the mindset that companies are less willing to invest in workers past 55-60, no recruitment, no training, no career progression. But the math is simple: fewer young people are entering the workforce as the population ages, so companies will need older workers whether they’ve planned for it or not.’’ she said.

In our conversation, she pointed to a Yale University study showing that 45% of people aged 65 and over experienced cognitive or physical improvement over a 12-year period among those who believed that aging can also bring positive gains.

“In practice, the most effective mechanism remains intergenerational teams, people working side by side rather than in age-segregated programs,” she said, adding that some Western multinational companies were already adopting this strategy.

“This is not corporate social responsibility; it is a competitive advantage in both talent and innovation.”

Of course, longevity and demographic sustainability go hand in hand.

In 2025, Portugal recorded more than 87,700 births, the highest figure in a decade, largely driven by a significant increase in foreign-born mothers as part of the country’s growing immigrant population.

While longevity is ultimately not about chasing youth or boosting testosterone levels, it is about creating societies in which people can live longer, healthier, and more productive lives, while younger generations ensure the demographic balance and economic dynamism needed to sustain those longer lives.

The red-colored bridge remains an engineering marvel.

Its steel towers rise about 190 metres above the river’s blue waters, while the entire structure extends a little more than three kilometers (3,173 metres/almost 2 miles) from one end to the other. It is one of the world’s great suspension bridges.

It is no coincidence that the bridge resembles the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It was built by the same U.S. company that constructed the Golden Gate Bridge. The 25 de Abril Bridge is longer, though not as wide, and the biggest difference is that it also carries a railway deck.

On windy days, the bridge comes alive with its ear-deafening metallic sounds as trains cross the lower deck.

About 3,000 Portuguese workers were engaged in its construction. Although the Estato Novo regime revealed only four workers had died during the construction, it came into daylight after the revolution that almost 60 died due to the poor safety measures. It was a standard policy of the regime to hide such truths from the public.

The opening of the bridge was brought forward by six months, with compensation paid to the U.S. contractor, Steel International, to coincide with celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the Salazar regime.

“On the day of the opening, Salazar looked dapper in a dark suit, wearing his usual high-laced boots, and watched the ceremony with moist eyes,” journalist Dennis Redmont, who covered the opening for The Associated Press, remembers.

A year after the opening, the bridge had yet to attract many commuters.

The round-trip bus fare across the bridge was 8 escudos, while the ferries cost not more than 2 escudos. Thousands signed a petition to protest the fares. An average of 8,300 daily crossings after the bridge’s opening fell short of the 20,000 predicted by the U.S. company Steel International.

Today, with 300,000 people crossing the bridge daily by cars, buses, and trains, the contrast is significant.

The city’s other monument, Cristo Rei , perched on the hilltop in Almada and inaugurated in 1959, overlooks the bridge. Together, they create a commanding view. The scale of the bridge dwarfs the ships as they glide below.

Sixty years after it first spanned the Tagus, the bridge has outlived a regime, witnessed democracy return to Portugal, and now stands as one of the landmarks of the city.

It happened again, this time in Aix-en-Provence in Southern France.

There are three heroes in this story:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings and posters gave the Parisian nightclub Moulin Rouge eternity; the club’s legendary dancer Jane Avril; and her biographer, the British foreign correspondent José Shercliff, who spent more than half her lifetime in Lisbon until she died in Cascais in 1985 at age 83.

A current temporary exhibition at the Caumont Museum displayed Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters, reflecting his passion for the nightclub and its dancers. He was particularly enchanted by Jane Avril and transformed her into an unforgettable cultural icon.

Avril, born as Jeanne Beaudon into poverty, climbed to fame as the top dancer at the Moulin Rouge with her dancing style, marked by sudden body movements, as if triggered by electric shocks, in addition to club’s signature can-can dance.

Caumont Museum chose Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster titled ‘‘Jane Avril aux Serpents-Jane Avril of the Snakes’’ to announce the exhibit, which ends October 4, at the entrance of its historic building. The poster captures the dancer in a black dress, with a snake design, as her body moves like the serpent’s whirling motions and her red hat is thrown back.

Just like Toulouse-Lautrec, journalist Ms. Shercliff, who then lived in Paris and worked for the British newspaper Daily Herald, was mesmerized by this eccentric woman after she interviewed the dancer.

Many years later, in 1952, she published a biography titled Jane Avril of the Moulin Rouge, decorated with Lautrec’s drawings.

“This is the story of Jane Avril….daughter of a demi-mondaine and an Italian aristocrat who from a humble and tortured childhood danced her way to fame,” reads the book’s inside jacket.

Shercliff’s name is part of Lisbon’s history under the Salazar regime. She worked as a foreign correspondent for many international outlets like The Times of London, the BBC, and The Associated Press. She was well clued in. Her house in Cascais was like a gathering club. Former Prime Minister and President Mario Soares, Artist Paula Rego and many others were known to drop by.

She was born Josephine but used the name José in her bylines. Probably, it was convenient to appear as if she were a man in her bylines.

She was witty, with a technique that would make Mata Hari turn in her grave.

She invented the “pin method,” recounted by one of her old colleagues. Whenever she received news that a Portuguese soldier had been wounded or killed in one of the colonies, she would insert a pin into a map marking the incident site, whether in Angola, Mozambique, or Guinea. The method led to remarkably accurate casualty figures, reported by The Associated Press, to the dismay of the Portuguese military brass who wanted to keep the uprisings at the colonies quiet.

There were rumors that she was a British agent.

For a young woman, who moved from the posh rooms of the Moulin Rouge to the dark corridors of government offices, such suspicions were almost inevitable. She was arrested in Barcelona on suspicion of being a spy during the Spanish Civil War.

Perhaps her British nationality was her shield.

She arrived in Lisbon in 1940 to take a boat to New York to continue her journalistic career at the Daily Herald.

But then, she decided to stay in Lisbon, a city at that time brewing with spying activities by both the Allies and the Axis powers. Or perhaps she was ordered to stay in Lisbon.

She was mysterious and blunt in frightening times.

Although she wrote Jane Avril’s biography, she never gave many clues about her own life.

Perhaps we will learn more when a book about her life, written by Wilton Fonseca and Goncalo Perreira Rosa is published in September.

*This article was published in the Dairio de Noticias in Portuguese: https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/o-que-portugal-tem-a-ver-com-jane-avril-a-musa-de-toulouse-lautrec

When you land, another surprise. Someone has walked off with your suitcase.

He didn’t steal it. He simply picked up the wrong bag.

And that’s how ‘‘Portuguese Love’’begins.

The Turkish-Portuguese co-production, playing now at the Portuguese theaters , starts like a romantic comedy setup. But it quickly becomes something else: a showcase for Portugal, its culture, natural beauty and even history.

The film opens in Istanbul, with sweeping shots of the Bosporus, before flying west to Lisbon. Soon we are following the Atlantic coastline to Ericeira, where the waves crash against the cliffs, fishing boats swing in the harbor, and life seems to move at a different pace.

Yasemin, played by Turkish star Cansu Dere, follows her missing suitcase to Ericeira after discovering her glamorous life has fallen apart overnight. The man who accidentally took it, José, played by Diogo Morgado, is trying to rebuild his own life after a tragedy that sent him back to his hometown and to his young son.

No spoilers. That’s simply where the story starts.

If it all sounds familiar, that’s because it follows the formula Turkish television dramas have perfected over the past two decades: heartbreak, family, betrayal, ambition, redemption and, of course, romance.

Turkish series attract nearly a billion viewers across approximately 170 countries. They generated export revenues estimated at around one billion euros last year.

Portugal has long been one of their success stories.

Many Portuguese viewers first fell in love with Turkish productions through ‘‘Magnificent Century’,’’ the lavish historical drama about Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Today, Turkish series fill daytime television schedules here, and Portugal even has a dedicated 24-hour channel called ‘‘Dizi’’ the Turkish word for “series.”

Also playing now on Netflix is a nine-episode series adaptation of ‘‘The Museum of Innocence,’’ the successful novel by Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.

The filmmakers know their audience. At one point, a Portuguese character In the movie Portuguese Love casually speaks a few words in Turkish before admitting his family is hooked on Turkish dramas.

Actors have a good sense of tv series.

Cansu Dere rose to fame some 20 years ago with the popular Turkish series ‘‘Sila’’ which was also broadcast internationally.

The male lead, José, is played by Diogo Morgado, who gained international recognition with his portrayal of Jesus in 20th Century Fox’s Son of God and in The Bible, the Emmy-nominated miniseries produced by The History Channel.

Ismail Demirci, who plays the role of the fiancee is also a well-known actor in the Turkish series He is impressive with his powerful performance.

The film is directed by İsmail Şahin, a German director, actor, and screenwriter of Turkish descent, who is highly regarded for his primetime German television work.

Şahin, understands something else, too.

Originally from Germany and of Turkish descent, he moved to Ericeira two years ago. When I asked whether the story reflected his own experience of starting over in Portugal, he didn’t hesitate.

“I was convinced by my own story,” he told me.

Again and again, Portuguese Love returns to the same ideas: taking a deep breath. Letting go. Beginning again. Living more simply.

In one of the scenes quiet scenes Yasemin stops to look at posters commemorating Portugal’s April 25 Carnation Revolution. which marks the end 41 years of dictatorship. An elderly man notices her curiosity and says only one sentence:

“Freedom has a price.”

It’s one of the film’s few moments that asks for interpretation. For some this has political canotation.

For Yasemin, it means walking away from wealth, prestige, and the life she thought she wanted.

The movie has already opened in Turkey, where it will almost certainly tempt more visitors to discover Portugal and perhaps even join the roughly 4,000 Turks who have settled here in recent years.

This movie is a cinematic love letter to Portugal. And that is actually what the title refers to.

Like Woody Allen’s films celebrating Barcelona, Paris, Rome, or London, this movie turns a a country into the object of affection.

The Portuguese version of the article is available in https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/uma-carta-de-amor-a-portugal-portuguese-love-estreia-nos-cinemas

Today I am touching upon a rather a sad matter.

It is about surviving the loss of loved ones and the story of Siri Hustvedt, the widow of Paul Auster, the acclaimed American novelist who left us two years ago

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Can you really die of a broken heart?

It sounds like something from a novel, a poem or a film.

But doctors say it can happen.

French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi wrote in her memoir ‘’Persepolis’’’exactly these words:, “Nothing’s worse than saying goodbye. It’s a little like dying.”

And her words took on a tragic meaning when she died in May.

Satrapi who was 56 years old, never recovered from the death of her husband, Swedish producer Mattias Ripa, who died a year earlier

Science even has a name for it: broken heart syndrome.

And it’s more than a metaphor.

Neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor studies grief. She says that on the very day someone loses a loved one, the risk of suffering a heart attack is twenty-one times higher than normal.

The body, it seems, mourns as much as the mind.

The American writer Siri Hustvedt knows that feeling.

After losing her husband, novelist Paul Auster, she wrote a remarkable book about grief called Ghost stories. It recently published in Portuguese under the title Fantasmas.

She describes what loss did to her body.

She couldn’t breathe properly.

Her heart raced.

Pain settled between her ribs.

Sometimes she felt electric shocks running through her body.

She even imagined she had developed the same cancer that killed her husband.

She was walking around the house talking to herself and eventually she went to see a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst after slipping in a half-filled bathtub while still wearing her socks.

The title of the book is justified because she recounts transcendental, hallucinatory experiences of living with her husband’s ghost in their Brooklyn home, in New York.

That’s how mourning works.

The person has disappeared.

Yet they remain painfully present.

Hustvedt told an audience in Lisbon she could still smell Paul’s cigars.

She felt him beside her in their Brooklyn apartment.

She writes: “I’m living in a haunted house... inhabited by a ghost Paul and I made together.”

When someone has shared your life for decades, perhaps grief isn’t just emotional.

It rewires the body itself.

For Satrapi, a sensitive and observant soul, whose graphic novel Persepolis was about the fall of the Shah and the mullahs’ rapid transformation of Iran into a Sharia-based regime, it was a different choice.

Marjane Satrapi left one final message.

Just days before she died, she posted eight black squares printed on pink on Instagram.

One word on each.

Read together, they became a final sentence.

“For I lost the love of my life.”

Eight words.

And perhaps, everything she wanted to say. and she must have chosen pink deliberately. Isn’t it the color of “love”?

This is Zeynep Tinaz Redmont

Thank you for listening Lisbon Diaires.

Until next time stay safe.

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This time, quite literally

This month, Lisbon inaugurated Rua Snu Abecassis in the Lumiar neighborhood, honoring the Danish-born publisher whose courage, defiance, and determination helped reshape Portugal’s cultural life during the final years of dictatorship.

At the ceremony were Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, former President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Snu’s three children, and five of her grandchildren, a gathering that celebrated a woman many credit with bringing a breath of fresh air to a country living under António Salazar’s restrictive regime.

As Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa put it: “She founded democracy before it was founded.”

Forty-six years after her death, Snu remains one of Portugal’s most compelling figures: a publisher who challenged censorship, a social pioneer who ignored convention, and a woman who refused to let others decide who she should be.

“I was only nine years old when my mother left us, and she herself was only forty,” her daughter, Rebecca Abecassis, a journalist, told those gathered.

“Yet, in her short life, she managed to leave a legacy to her family and to her descendants. It was a legacy of courage, determination, the pursuit of the common good, a deep commitment to strong values, and, no less importantly, the fight for democracy.”

Born Ebba Merete Seidenfaden in Copenhagen in 1940, Snu met her future Portuguese husband Vasco Abecassis while they were students at a boarding school in Sussex, England. They married and settled in Lisbon in 1961.

Just four years later, she founded Publicações Dom Quixote.

The publishing house would become one of the country’s most important centers of cultural resistance, introducing Portuguese readers to authors and ideas that the regime often tried to suppress. Snu became a familiar face at the headquarters of the political police, regularly summoned for questioning over the books she chose to publish including banned Russian classics.

But censorship only seemed to strengthen her resolve.

According to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the authorities never quite knew what to do with her. When books were seized, she simply found ways to put them back on bookstore shelves.

“It was still a grey Portugal, a country in black and white,” Marcelo recalled of the nation he knew before meeting Snu at the age of nineteen.

“She brought color and light.”

Mayor Carlos Moedas described her as an independent, cosmopolitan woman who believed in Portugal at a time when many had stopped believing in themselves.

“She was not born in Portugal,” he said, “but with her, Portugal was reborn in a certain way.”

He also noted that she carried the childhood nickname given to her by her father throughout her life: “Snu”, a Danish word suggesting someone bright and clever.

“Choosing who we want to be,” Moedas added, “is always the first act of freedom.”

That freedom extended beyond publishing.

Snu’s romantic relationship with politician Francisco Sá Carneiro made headlines across the country. Unable to marry under Portugal’s divorce laws at the time, the couple lived together openly, enduring public criticism and political scrutiny. Following the carnation revolution, when Sá Carneiro became Prime Minister in 1980, Snu effectively became Portugal’s unofficial First Lady.

Their story ended in tragedy.

On December 4, 1980, Snu and Sá Carneiro died in a plane crash while traveling to a political rally in Porto. Defense Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, his wife, and the remaining passengers were also killed. More than forty years later, the circumstances surrounding the crash continue to provoke debate and speculation.

Yet Snu’s legacy endures.

Her life has inspired books, films, and television dramas, including the 2019 feature film Snu, directed by Patrícia Sequeira. Snu is also one of the central characters in an acclaimed Atelevision series Três Mulheres, which chronicles the lives of Snu and her contemporaries writer Natália Correia, and journalist Vera Lagoa, whose voices all helped loosen the grip of dictatorship in the years leading to the Carnation Revolution.

In 2011, journalist Cândida Pinto published Snu’s biohraphy called Snu e a Vida Privada com Sá Carneiro, exploring both her extraordinary life and her relationship with Portugal’s former Prime Minister.

Today, her name joins the map of Lisbon.

And perhaps that is fitting.

Because long before Portugal embraced freedom, Snu Abecassis was already living it.

The new Snu Abecassis Street, in Lumiar, was inaugurated by the Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, in the presence of former President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Snu’s three children, and five of her grandchildren.

“I was only nine years old when my mother left us, and she herself was only forty. Yet, in her short life, she managed to leave a legacy to her family and to her descendants,” said Rebecca Abecassis, the publisher’s daughter, remembering her mother.

“It was a legacy of courage, determination, the pursuit of the common good, a deep commitment to strong values, and, no less importantly, the fight for democracy.”

Born Ebba Merete Seidenfaden in Copenhagen in 1940, Snu met Vasco Abecassis while both were studying at a boarding school in Sussex, England.

They married and moved to Lisbon in 1961. Four years later, she would found Publicações Dom Quixote, a publishing house that quickly became a major hub of cultural resistance to the regime, publishing frequently censored works and authors who were little known in Portugal at the time.

She was a frequent visitor to political police headquarters for interrogations due to Dom Quixote’s publishing activities.

At the ceremony, Carlos Moedas justified the tribute as recognition for a woman who “helped pave the way for our democracy.”

“She was not born in Portugal, but with her, Portugal was reborn in a certain way,” stated the Mayor.

Moedas described Snu as an independent and cosmopolitan woman who had the courage to challenge social norms, to think freely during the dictatorship, and to believe in Portugal.

He also recalled that she kept the nickname given to her by her father for her entire life, “Snu,” which means “smart” or “clever” in Danish.

“Choosing who we want to be is always the first act of freedom,” Moedas added.

Invited by Moedas to speak as a friend of Snu, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa painted a more personal portrait of the publisher, whom he met when he was 19 years old.

“It was still a grey Portugal, a country in black and white,” he said, recalling the country he encountered before meeting Snu.

According to Marcelo, it was she who brought “color and light” to a Portugal that was still closed off to the world.

Identifying her as a “rebellious pioneer,” Marcelo stated that Snu “founded democracy before it was founded” by promoting freedom of thought.

He also said that the regime never knew how to deal with a woman who responded to censorship by simply republishing the seized books.

Whenever a work was banned, Snu found a way to make it return to bookstores.

Marcelo also recalled that Snu bothered not only the regime but also parts of the opposition, precisely because she refused to fit into any political orthodoxy.

Snu’s relationship with politician Francisco Sá Carneiro would ultimately make her one of the most well-known public figures in the country. Prevented from marrying by the divorce laws in force at the time, they lived together for several years, facing public criticism and political pressure. When Sá Carneiro became Prime Minister, Snu effectively became Portugal’s unofficial First Lady.

The two died together in the Camarate disaster on December 4, 1980, while traveling to a rally in Porto. Minister of Defense Adelino Amaro da Costa, his wife, and the remaining occupants of the plane also died. Decades later, the circumstances of the crash continue to fuel doubts and controversy.

Her story is portrayed in the 2019 Portuguese film Snu, directed by Patrícia Sequeira, which is available on some streaming services.

Snu is also one of the central figures in the acclaimed Portuguese historical drama series Três Mulheres (Three Women), played by Portuguese actress Victoria Guerra and directed by Fernando Vendrell. The series follows the lives of three influential contemporaries, Snu, her close friend, writer and poet Natália Correia, and journalist Vera Lagoa, whose cultural and political influence helped undermine Portugal’s dictatorship in the years leading up to the Carnation Revolution of 1974.

In 2011, prominent Portuguese journalist Cândida Pinto published Snu e a Vida Privasa com Sá Carneiro (Snu and the Private Life of Sá Carneiro), a biography exploring Snu ’s life and her relationship with Sá Carneiro.

This article was published last week in Diario de Noticias: https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/snu-abecassis-d-nome-a-uma-rua-de-lisboa-fundou-a-democracia-antes-de-ela-ser-fundada

This is the case with Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, a political activist who suffered under former Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s authoritarian regime and has made it his mission to fight for truth and democracy.

It was not any different in last year’s box office hit O Agente Secreto, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. The film took home Cannes Best Director and Best Actor awards. Moura also won the Golden Globes Best Actor award with his role.

And now, it is no coincidence that Moura and prominent theatre and film director Christiane Jatahy jointly staged Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 work A Trial – After An Enemy of the People, blending its remarkably contemporary themes with today’s ailments: social media, fake news, public ignorance, censorship, and the erosion of truth.

Staged over three nights at Lisbon’s CCB Cultural Centre, the production casts Moura as the doctor and scientist Thomas Stockmann, who confronts his corrupt brother, the town’s mayor, in a community whose economy depends on its thermal baths. While preserving the core of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, the adaptation brings the drama into the present through updated dialogue and a courtroom setting dominated by a large video screen.

Stockmann discovers that the town’s waters are contaminated and pose a serious public health danger.

The municipality uses the power of the media and “fake news” to dispute his findings, even though there is a solution: building longer sewage pipes to divert wastewater away from the springs—an expensive fix.

Instead of being hailed as a hero, Stockmann is condemned by the town’s residents, whose livelihoods depend on thermal tourism.

Then comes the criminal trial, where Stockmann’s daughter, played by Julia Bernat, serves as his defence attorney.

Sitting opposite the defence is Stockmann’s brother, the mayor, played by Danilo Grangheia.

The mayor uses every tool to undermine Stockmann and create his own version of the truth. He mobilizes journalists, amplifies irrelevant WhatsApp messages, and alleges that Stockmann was not a good husband or father. None of it is relevant to the case. The attack is entirely personal.

Money takes priority over public health.

Today’s communication tools are used to manufacture “truth.” Videos are projected onto a giant screen, WhatsApp messages are blasted through loudspeakers, and even a live video call with a scientist becomes part of the spectacle.

Moura portrays Stockmann as a devastated man who only wanted to protect public health, but lost his family, his job, and was declared an “enemy of the state.”

The film ‘The Secret Agent’ (O Agente Secreto) was also political.

There, too, Moura is inseparable from his character, another enemy of the state: a university professor forced into hiding in Recife while seeking to escape abroad. His crime? Speaking out against a businessman close to the regime who shut down the researcher’s university department in order to steal its innovative projects.

Moura, who studied journalism in Brazil, caught international fame with the successful Netflix series that ran for three years. It was about the rise and fall of Colombia’s notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel.

Moura is an outspoken critic of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who fueled a right-wing social media campaign against Moura’s directorial debut film and blocked its release in 2019.

Marighella, set during Brazil’s dictatorship, tells the story of the Marxist-Leninist militant Carlos Marighella, who rejected nonviolent resistance against the regime. He was assassinated by the state in 1969.

Bolsonaro, a far-right former military captain, remains under house arrest after being sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election. His son Senator Flávio Bolsonaro is running for presidency against the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the October presidential elections.

“I am worried that Bolsonaro’s family might win this election. It would be a tragedy for the country,” Moura said last week at a press conference in Lisbon.

“Facts no longer exist. Truth is over, and that frightens me,” the actor said, explaining that it was one of the reasons why he recreated Ibsen’s play. In this era of disinformation, he said, “This is the moment to strengthen journalism.” Moura was a reporter before deciding acting was his passion.

Returning to the play and its interactive style, the audience becomes an active participant. Eleven jurors are selected from the audience to question Stockmann, who answers through improvisation. At the end of the trial, the jurors vote and deliver the verdict.

In his closing speech, Stockmann recalls how Galileo and many others who spoke the truth were condemned by the Inquisition.“‘It is the end of truth. There are no facts but versions,’” Stockmann tell the jury.

On Saturday, the second day of the production at Lisbon’s CCB Cultural Centre, the vote was 9–2, declaring Stockmann innocent.

“I can’t help but wonder who those two people are,” Moura remarked ironically when the verdict was announced.

From Lisbon, the production travels to two of Europe’s two major theatre festivals, Avignon and Edinburgh.

Next comes a busy period of film projects for Moura, including his U.S. directorial debut with Last Night at the Lobster, in which he will also star. The film is based on Stewart O’Nan’s 2007 novel and features an impressive cast that includes Elisabeth Moss, Brian Tyree Henry, and Sofia Carson.

Ziyaretçilerine geçmişle bugün arasında doğal bir yolculuk sunan Lisbon, bu duyguyu fazlasıyla yaşatan şehirlerden biri.

Yedi tepe üzerine kurulu, Tagus Nehri boyunca uzanan Lizbon’un nüfusu yaklaşık 800 bin.

Şehri özel kılan yalnızca coğrafyası değil; büyük şehirlerde hava kirliliğinden giderek yok olan parlak ve keskin ışığı.

Tagus Nehri, İstanbul’daki Boğaz’ı hatırlatacak şekilde şehir içinden geçerek Atlantik Okyanusu’na ulaşıyor.

Şehrin nostaljik atmosferinin önemli nedenlerinden biri de İslami mimari mirası.

Ülkenin büyük bir bölümü ve Lizbon, 12. yüzyıla kadar 500 yıl Memlüklerin yönetiminde kalmış. Bu dönemin izleri bugün hâlâ sokak dokusunda, seramik çini süslemelerinde ve hatta Portekizce dilinde görülebiliyor.

Şehrin bazı bölgelerinin daha yeni görünmesinin nedeni ise 1755 yılında yaşanan büyük deprem. Deprem ve ardından gelen tsunami ile yangınlar, Lizbon’u neredeyse tamamen yok etmiş. 250 bin nüfuslu şehirde ölü sayısı yüzde 10’u aşmış.

Bu yıkımın ardından şehir, dönemin başbakanı Marquis of Pombal’ın liderliğinde yeniden inşa edilmiş. “Ölüleri gömün, dirileri doyurun” sözüyle hatırlanan Pombal, depreme dayanıklı binalar, geniş meydanlarla modern bir şehir planı oluşturmuş.

Bugün anıtı Marquês de Pombal Meydanı’nda yükseliyor. Bu meydan, Lizbon’un en şık caddelerinden Avenida da Liberdade’ye açılır. Uluslararası moda markalarının yer aldığı bu caddeye rağmen şehir, lüks alışverişten çok en az 100 yıllık tarihi olan artisanal dükkânlarıyla öne çıkar.

Lizbon yürüyerek keşfedilebilecek bir şehir. Yokuşları zaman zaman zorlayıcı olsa da iyi bir ayakkabı ve kısa molalarla bu zorluk kolayca aşılabilir.

Yol boyunca karşınıza çıkan kafeler ve “tasca” adı verilen yerel restoranlar doğal dinlenme noktalarıdır.

Şehrin en yüksek noktalarından biri olan 11. yüzyılda inşa edilmiş São Jorge Kalesi’nden aşağı uzanan yollar, São Vicente de Fora Manastırı’na (mosteirodesaovicentedefora.com) ve Lizbon’un en eski mahallelerinden Alfama’ya ulaşır.

Bu yürüyüş sırasında kacirilmayacak bir mekan bir Turk isletmesi olan Casa del Arte Club House. Barok tarzda on cephesi , desenleri ve sarı, mavi ve beyaz cinileriyle bu bina sehrin hemen her yil en guzel on cephesi olan binasi olarak seciliyor. Otelin etrafında pek çok antikacı ve hemen yanında her Salı ve Cumartesi kurulan, geçmişi 14. yüzyıla kadar dayanan antik ‘’hırsızlar pazarı’’ (Feira da Ladra) bulunur.

1755 depreminde zarar gören São Vicente de Fora, Braganza hanedanının uyelerine, hemen yanindaki Igreja de Santa Engrácia (Panteão) da şair Eça de Queiroz, efsanevi fadocu Amália Rodrigues ve diktatörlüğe karşı direnen General Humberto Delgado gibi önemli isimlerin mezarlarına ev sahipliği yapar.

Alfama ise şehrin ruhunu en yoğun hissettiren bölgelerden biridir. Depremden büyük ölçüde etkilenmeyen bu mahalle, dar ve labirentvari sokaklarıyla tarihi dokusunu korur. Bir zamanlar balıkçı köyü olan Alfama, kadınların balıktan dönmeyen, denizin yuttuğu erkeklerine söyledikleri ağıt müziği fadonun doğduğu yer olarak bilinir. Akşam saatlerinde sokaklar canlanır ve restoranlardan yükselen fado ezgileri şehre farklı bir ruh katar.

Lizbon’da Arap etkisi bugün de hissedilir. Çini geleneği bu döneme uzanırken, dildeki ‘’Alfama’’ gibi pek çok Arapça kökenli kelime de bu mirasın bir parçasıdır. Inshallah kelimesinin “Oxalá” biçimini de günlük hayatta sıkça kullanırlar.

Şehrin güneyinde Príncipe Real, Chiado, Bairro Alto ve Baixa mahalleleri birbirine yakın konumda olup bir gün içinde gezilebilir. Príncipe Real’den Chiado’ya inerken manzara noktalarından şehrin diğer tepeleri seyredilebilir.

Lizbon’un kültürel kalbi Chiado’da 1732’den beri faaliyet gösteren Livraria Bertrand (www.bertrand.pt) dünyanın en eski kitapçısıdır. Bir zamanlar şair Fernando Pessoa’nın uğrak yeri A Brasileira (abrasileira.pt) kafesi de bugün hâlâ popülerliğini korumaktadır.

Kafenin hemen karşısında yer alan “Paris em Lisboa” mağazası ise 19. yüzyıldan bu yana ev icin zarif tekstil ürünleri sunuyor.

Chiado’daki önemli yapılardan biri de Carmo Manastırı (museuarqueologicodocarmo.pt) kalıntılarıdır. 14. yüzyılda inşa edilen bu yapı, deprem sonrası bilinçli olarak restore edilmemiş ve yazları açık hava müzik etkinliklerine ev sahipliği yapmaktadır.

Buradan yokuş yukarı yürünüldüğünde şehrin zarif ve şık mahallesi dükkânlar ve lokantalarla donanmış Príncipe Real’e varılır.

Aşağı doğru inilirse Baixa’ya varılır ve Santa Justa Asansörü (www.carris.pt) görülebilir. Birkaç yüz metre aşağısındaki 100 yıllık dört metrekare büyüklüğündeki Luvaria Ulisses (http://www.luvariaulisses.com) dükkânı rengârenk el yapımı deri eldivenleriyle herkesin uğrak yeridir.

Nehre doğru ilerlediğinizde Praça do Comércio’ya ulaşırsınız. Sarı binaları ve haşmetli kemeriyle dikkat çeken bu meydan, özellikle manzarasıyla öne çıkar.

Nehir boyunca yürüdüğünüzde modern bir gastronomi merkezi olan Time Out Market’e (timeout.pt) varırsınız. Şehrin önde gelen 26 restoranının stantlarını bir araya getiren bu mekân, hem yerel halkın hem turistlerin gözdesidir.

Buradan tramvayla Belém’e geçilebilir. Yaklaşık yedi kilometre uzaklıktaki bu bölge, Lizbon’un en önemli tarihi yapılarından bazılarına ev sahipliği yapar: Keşifler Anıtı (padraodosdescobrimentos.pt/), Belém Kulesi (www.museusemonumentos.pt/en/museus-e-monumentos/torre-de-belem), Jerónimos Manastırı (www.jeronimosmonastery.com) ve halen cumhurbaşkanlığı konutu olarak da kullanılan Belém Sarayı (www.museu.presidencia.pt/pt/conhecer/palacio-nacional-de-belem/#).

Belém aynı zamanda Portekiz’in denizaşırı imparatorluk geçmişini hatırlatan bir mahalledir. Bir zamanlar Brezilya’dan Hindistan’a, Afrika’nın dört bir yanına uzanan geniş bir coğrafyayı hükmü altında tutmuştur.

Belém’in en popüler duraklarından biri Pastéis de Belém pastanesidir. 1837’den beri aynı tarifle hazırlanan, pişmiş milföy hamur içinde üstü yanmış muhallebi tadındaki tatlıyı denemek için her zaman önünde uzun kuyruklar vardır.

Lizbon, müzeleriyle de dikkat çeker. Bunlardan en meşhuru kuşkusuz 1869 yılında Üsküdar’da doğan Ermeni asıllı iş adamı Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’in müzesidir (gulbenkian.pt). Hâlihazırda önemli bir kısmı tamirde olan müzenin modern kanadı CAM yine de görmeye değerdir.

Ayrıca Belém’deki CCB (ccb.pt) ve MAAT (maat.pt) modern sanat meraklıları için öne çıkan duraklardır.

Uzak Doğu sanatına ilgi duyanlar için Casa Asia Müzesi de (casaasia-cfc.scml.pt) ziyaret edilebilir.

Çocuklu ziyaretçiler için dünyaca ünlü akvaryum (Oceanário.pt) önemli bir alternatiftir.

Şehirde daha fazla zaman geçirmek isteyenler için Cascais ve Sintra ideal kaçamak noktalarıdır. Cascais, okyanus kıyısında yer alan şirin bir kasabayken, Sintra masalsı Pena Sarayı (parquesdesintra.pt) ile ünlüdür.

Lizbon mutfağında taze balık ve deniz ürünleri öne çıkar. Hamburger yerine Portekizin meşhur ekmek arası bonfilesi bifanayı deneme değer. Yerel restoranlar, şehrin gastronomisini deneyimlemek için en doğru adreslerdir.

Lizbon sokaklarında yürüdükçe, ışığını izledikçe ve tarihine yaklaştıkça, ziyaretçilerine unutulmaz bir deneyim sunar. Hele erguvan ağaçlarının açıp şehri mosmor bir örtüyle kapladığı Mayıs ayında gelinirse, keyfine hiç doyum olmaz.

Lokanta Tavsiyeleri:

Sinal Vermelho at Bairo Alto : R. das Gáveas 89, 1200-206 Lisboa €€€

Club do Fado:

https://www.clubedefado.pt

€€€

Corrupio :

https://corrupio.pt/

€€€

Davvero Italian Restaurant €€€€ https://www.sublimehotels.pt/en/dine-drink/davvero-lisboa/313/

Mercearia do Século €€€

https://merceariadoseculo.pt/

Faz Frio €€€ Principe Real Phone:215814296

Monte Mar Cascais Telephone: 916025305 €€€€

Hotel:

Tivoli Hotel on Avenida Liberdade (5 Star)

https://www.tivolihotels.com

Emerald House (4 Stars) https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/lisemqq-the-emerald-house-lisbon/?SEO_id=GMB-EMEA-QQ-LISEMQQ

Hotel Borges (3 Star) ( hotelborges.com)

This city of around 800,000 people, spread across seven hills and resting along the Tagus River as it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, has an uplifting effect on its visitors.

There is an incredible light here, something rarely found in big cities anymore, largely because of pollution. Combined with the presence of the river and the rhythm of the Atlantic waves, it creates an almost therapeutic atmosphere that is hard to describe, but easy to feel.

The Tagus cuts through the city much like the Bosporus divides Istanbul before it reaches the Atlantic ocean and waterfront neighborhoods start.

Lisbon’s Islamic architectural heritage is another reason for its nostalgic character. The city remained under Moorish rule for four centuries until the 12th century, like much of Portugal. That legacy still lingers,in the tiles, in the narrow streets, even in the language.

Parts of the city feel relatively new, largely because Lisbon was almost completely destroyed by the devastating earthquake of 1755. This was followed by a massive tsunami that swallowed the lower districts, and fires that raged for days. The disaster struck on All Saints’ Day, when many people were in churches with lit candles. The death toll is estimated at more than 10 percent of the city’s 250,000 inhabitants.

The city was rebuilt under the visionary leadership of the Marquis of Pombal, who famously declared, “Bury the dead, feed the living.” He introduced what later became known as the Pombaline style, an innovative architectural system using a wooden, cage-like structure designed to withstand earthquakes, along with wide public squares and fire-resistant buildings.

His monument stands in the square that bears his name in central Lisbon, leading to Avenida da Liberdade, the city’s elegant main avenue lined with international fashion brands. But Lisbon is not really a city for that kind of shopping. Its charm lies in its artisanal stores, many over a century old, offering unique items. Discovering them is part of the joy of being here.

The city is walkable, even with its hills. All you need is a good pair of sneakers and a willingness to go up and down. There are countless cafés and simple, local restaurants, known as tascas where you can pause, take a breath, and continue your exploration.

Lisbon’s highest point is home to the iconic São Jorge Castle, built in the mid-11th century by the Moors. From there, the road leads down toward the Convento de São Vicente de Fora and the historic Alfama district.

The convent, initiated by King Philip II of Spain and completed in 1629, was heavily damaged in the earthquake. Today, it houses the royal pantheon, the burial place of the Braganza family. Next to it is another church, Igreja de Santa Engrácia (Panteão) ,where many notable figures of modern Portugal were laid to rest. They include the writer Eça de Queiroz, the legendary fado singer Amália Rodrigues, and General Humberto Delgado, a key opponent of the dictatorship whose name was later given to Lisbon Airport after the Carnation Revolution of 1974.

Nearby, your eyes will immediately catch Casa del Arte Club House, often described as one of the most beautiful buildings in the city, with its baroque-inspired yellow, blue, and white tiles.

Just a short walk away is Campo de Santa Clara, where the historic Feira da Ladra, the Thieves’ Market, has been held since the 13th century. It takes place every Tuesday and Saturday morning, and the surrounding streets are filled with antique shops and curiosities.

From here begins Alfama, Lisbon’s most historic Moorish-influenced neighborhood. It was largely spared by the earthquake and still retains its labyrinthine structure. Once a fishing village, Alfama became the birthplace of fado in the 19th century, a music shaped by longing, often telling stories of men lost at sea.

Alfama is best experienced in the late afternoon, when the light softens, and into the evening, when restaurants fill with the sound of live fado. It is in these moments that Lisbon feels most timeless.

The Moorish legacy is still visible throughout the city. The enduring tradition of decorative tiles, known as azulejos, has its roots in that period, and even the language carries Arabic influences.

After exploring the southern parts of the city, you can continue to Príncipe Real and then on to Chiado, Bairro Alto, and Baixa, adjacent neighborhoods that can easily be covered in a day. Walking down from Príncipe Real toward Chiado, you’ll find one of the city’s panoramic points, miradouros, offering sweeping views over Lisbon and São Jorge Castle.

Chiado is a historic district that blends tradition and modernity. It is home to Bertrand, the oldest bookstore in the world, operating since 1732. Buying a book here and having it stamped is a small but meaningful ritual.

Parts of Chiado were destroyed in a major fire in 1988, considered the worst disaster in the city since the 1755 earthquake. One place that survived is A Brasileira café, famously frequented by the poet Fernando Pessoa. His bronze statue outside remains one of the most photographed spots in Lisbon.

Right across the café is the elegant “Paris em Lisboa” shop, which has offered fine linens and textiles since 1888.

Also in Chiado are the Carmo ruins, one of Lisbon’s most striking landmarks. The remains of the roofless Carmo Convent, built in 1389 and left unrestored after the earthquake, now serve as an open-air memorial and a venue for concerts in the summer.

From Chiado, it’s an easy walk down to Baixa, where you’ll find the Santa Justa Elevator, a 45-meter neo-Gothic iron structure built in 1902, connecting the lower streets to Carmo Square.

Nearby is Luvaria Ulisses, a tiny glove shop that is an experience in itself. In a space barely four square meters, it offers handcrafted leather gloves of exceptional quality, continuing a tradition that spans more than a century.

Continuing toward the river brings you to Praça do Comércio, a grand waterfront square framed by yellow Pombaline buildings, the Arco da Rua Augusta, and a statue of King José I. Despite its name, it is not really a shopping area, but a place to pause and take in the scale of the city.

From here, you can walk to Time Out Market, a lively and usually overcrowded food hall where some of Lisbon’s best-known chefs serve dishes in a more casual setting. It is a good place to sample a range of flavors in one stop.

Alternatively, head to Belém, about seven kilometers west. Tram 15E is a convenient way to get there while enjoying views along the river. Another scenic public tram ride is with number 28 that gives you a tour of the city with locals.

Belém is home to several of Lisbon’s most important landmarks. On the waterfront stands the Monument to the Discoveries, honoring Portugal’s explorers. Nearby is the Jerónimos Monastery, where Vasco da Gama is buried, and across the road is Belém Palace, the official residence of the president.

This area reflects Portugal’s imperial past. The country once ruled territories across several continents, and its colonial era ended only in 1975, following the Carnation Revolution a year earlier.

For many visitors, however, the highlight of Belém is much simpler: the original bakery of the famous custard tart, Pastéis de Belém. The recipe, passed down from the monks of Jerónimos, has been preserved since 1837. The queues can be long, but the experience is worth it.

Lisbon also offers a rich museum scene. The Gulbenkian Museum remains a must-see. The CCB in Belém presents an impressive collection of modern art, while the Coach Museum houses a remarkable display of royal carriages. Nearby, MAAT stands out for its contemporary architecture along the river. A private hotel museum MACAM is an impressive addition to the city’s more than 60 museums.

Casa Asia in Chiado is a gem for lovers of Asian art.

If you have extra time, it is worth exploring beyond the city. Cascais, a short train ride away, is a picturesque seaside town with colorful houses and beaches. Sintra, also easily accessible, is home to the fairytale-like Pena Palace, perched high on a hill and blending Gothic and Moorish styles. It remains one of Portugal’s most iconic landmarks.

When it comes to eating in Lisbon, the best advice is simple: go local. Fresh fish and seafood dominate the menu, reflecting the city’s deep connection to the ocean.

Lisbon is not a city that reveals itself all at once. It is a place to be walked, slowly, up and down its hills, through its history, and into its light.

Food:

Sinal Vermelho at Bairo Alto : R. das Gáveas 89, 1200-206 Lisboa €€€

Club do Fado:

https://www.clubedefado.pt

€€€

Corrupio :

https://corrupio.pt/

€€€

Davvero Italian Restaurant €€€€ https://www.sublimehotels.pt/en/dine-drink/davvero-lisboa/313/

Mercearia do Século €€€

https://merceariadoseculo.pt/

Faz Frio €€€ Principe Real Phone:215814296

Monte Mar Cascais Telephone: 916025305 €€€€

Hotels:

Tivoli Hotel on Avenida Liberdade (5 Star)

https://www.tivolihotels.com

Emerald House (4 Stars) https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/lisemqq-the-emerald-house-lisbon/?SEO_id=GMB-EMEA-QQ-LISEMQQ

Hotel Borges (3 Star) ( hotelborges.com)

This is what French-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi wrote in her acclaimed memoir Persepolis, which brought her international fame.

Satrapi, who died at age 56 earlier this

month, proved her words were more than a literary reflection.

Her family said she died from grief. She was mourning the death of her husband, Swedish producer Mattias Ripa, for the past year.

Scientists have a name for this phenomenon: “broken heart syndrome.”

“On the day a loved one dies, you are 21 times more likely to have a heart attack than any other day of your life,” says Mary-Frances O’Connor, a leading U.S. neuroscientist and psychologist, during an interview with the University of Chicago podcast Big Brains.

O’Connor, who directs the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab at the University of Arizona, says a man is almost twice as likely to die of a heart attack in the first three months after his wife dies compared with a married man whose spouse is still living.

The same theme is explored by late author Paul Auster’s wife, Siri Hustvedt, also a celebrated writer, who poured her grief into a masterful book, Fantasmas, recently published in Portuguese.

She quotes French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, defining grief “as an amputation that generates a phantom limb.” “The body part has disappeared, but it remains in the person’s sensations, a kind of sensual hallucination of the missing part,” she writes.

Hustvedt’s experience with grief is daunting.

She has trouble breathing, suffers from rapid heartbeats, feels pain between her ribs, experiences electricity-like sensations shooting through her body, and fantasizes that she has developed a tumor mirroring the one that grew in her husband’s lungs.

She walks around the house talking to herself and eventually goes to see a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst after slipping in a half-filled bathtub while still wearing her socks.

The title of the book is justified because she recounts transcendental, hallucinatory experiences of living with her husband’s ghost in their Brooklyn home, in New York.

She feels the presence of her deceased husband in their bedroom on the day of his funeral and details the sensory hallucination of smelling his cigar smoke even in the garden.

“I’m living in a haunted house, inhabited by a ghost Paul and I made together, a ‘’we’’ that doesn’t exist anymore, not in the present anyway, but it has penetrated all the rooms.”

When this eternal farewell comes from a loved one, the surviving partner is doomed to long for the other half of body, soul, and mind forever.

Hustvedt, who was in Lisbon recently and told an audience full of her readers: ‘’I will love this man to the end of my life.’’ She focuses on her writing career, although her best editor is gone.

For Satrapi, a sensitive and observant soul, whose graphic novel Persepolis was about the fall of the Shah and the mullahs’ rapid transformation of Iran into a Sharia-based regime, it was a different choice.

Her last Instagram posts days before her death were carefully divided into eight consecutive entries, each displaying a single word printed in pink on black: “For” “I” “lost” “the” “love” “of” “my” “life.”

Read together, they form the sentence: “For I lost the love of my life.” And obviously missing the rest of the words: ‘’thus comes the end of my life too…’’

She must have chosen pink deliberately: Isn’t it the color of “love”?

As you enter through a narrow corridor into the Portuguese Pavilion, situated inside the Fondaco Marcello, a 15th-century merchant house once used for storing tobacco and silk, staff warn visitors about the possibility of exposure to intense sound triggered by a seismic tremor. Indeed, when the quake stroke with an ear-shattering roar, my reaction was an embarrassing scream. No wonder the installation is called ‘‘REDSKYFALLS.’’

Inside the darkened room, you gaze at a beautiful mountainous landscape , the kind of image that would make an ideal laptop screensaver. Yet the computer-generated projection on engraved aluminium plates depicting different species gradually becomes unsettling as a tremor approaches.

REDSKYFALLS displays seismic activity data captured in real time from some of the world’s most earthquake-prone cities: San Francisco, Lima, Los Angeles, and Lisbon. As tremors approach, frogs abandon ponds, snakes and worms emerge from their burrows, bees swarm, and cicadas fall silent. You observe fish freezing; flies losing their wings as the shattering hits. Nature functions as a warning system.

In her speech at the opening ceremony of the Pavilion, Portuguese Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Margarida Balseiro Lopes said that Estela’s work not only recalled the devastating 1755 earthquake in Lisbon as a “historical signature of the planet’s transformation”, but also reflected on the need to learn how to recognise signs. “Perhaps this is one of the most urgent tasks today,” she said.

The 2026 Venice Biennale’s main exhibition is gathered under the title In Minor Keys, was marred by the sudden death of Cameroon-born curator Koyo Kouoh just weeks before the opening. Protests later erupted over the organizers’ inclusion of Israel and Russia. The decision led to the resignation of the official jury, thus the cancelation of the official awards ceremony. The jury stated that it would not evaluate artists from countries whose leaders are subject to arrest warrants for crimes against humanity.

Portuguese artist Estrela was among the nearly 200 artists and cultural workers who signed an open letter by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) .

Shortly, the Venice Biennale took its share of the world’s ongoing turmoil.

Then comes the Vatican Pavilion, commissioned by the Portuguese Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça under the title The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul. The Cardinal, the Holy See’s ‘’Minister of Culture’’, together with curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, presents an experiment in deep listening and the authentic beauty of a garden.

As you put on the stereophonic headphones and enter The Mystical Garden of the Barefoot Carmelites, a hidden gem in Venice, you find yourself in a transcendental environment. You are no longer walking, but floating among visions of white, green, and yellow, flowers, the scent of jasmine trees, arias, and other therapeutic music flowing gently through your ears in seamless transitions.

For a moment, you forget the troubles of the world and immerse yourself completely in this blissful moment.

This spiritual experience leads to a religiously toned exhibition by Portugal’s Pedro Cabrita Reis, . Titled XIV Steps, it reimagines the 14 Stations of the Cross through a contemporary lens. It is an independent project that officially recognized by the Venice Biennale.

The exhibition is housed in a 14th-century salt warehouse, now operated by the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Located along the Zattere waterfront, the venue’s industrial stone-and-wood architecture provides a fitting setting for Reis’s monumental 14 paintings.

His impressive abstract works are open to each viewer’s own interpretation of the journey of Jesus. In some canvases, the cross, angels, even the figure of the Virgin Mary seem almost to emerge from the layers of paint.

“I look at the world as a painter, I feel as a painter, I think as a painter,” reads Cabrita Reis’ statement welcoming visitors at the entrance of the former warehouse.

It was a pity that another Portuguese exhibition closed on June 8 after being an attraction point. Titled The Eyes of Calouste Gulbenkian, it presented a magnificent selection of works by the celebrated 18th-century Venetian landscape painter Francesco Guardi. Ten of his most iconic paintings from the Gulbenkian collection were on display at the authentic Baroque palace Ca’ Rezzonico, the Museum of 18th-Century Venice, showcasing festive Venetian scenes, including the legendary Regattas and The Feast of the Ascension in St. Mark’s Square.

For more than six months every two years, until November 22, Venice overflows with art at every corner. This time, it seems the Portuguese contribution has managed to touch every human sense.

This article was published in Portuguese in Diario de Noticias:https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/o-toque-portugus-em-todos-os-sentidos-humanos-na-bienal-de-veneza

She has not only enriched our senses with her art but also served as a powerful testament to resilience during a time of repression under Portugal’s dictatorship.

Her works are at Arpad Szenes-Vieira a Silva Museum, built also in honor of her husband and fellow artist Arpad Szenes, is one of Lisbon’s hidden treasures.

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992) and Arpad Szenes (1897-1985) first crossed paths in Paris before making their home in France. After losing her husband, Vieira da Silva returned to her beloved Lisbon, where she established the museum and a foundation devoted to preserving their artistic legacy and nurturing emerging talents.

Her art continue to travel across Europe, enriching collections in galleries worldwide.

The museum, set against the backdrop of the Amoreiras Garden, where majestic ancient trees stand tall beside vibrant jacaranda blooms, offers a serene refuge for those seeking tranquility and inspiration.

Housed in a beautifully restored building that was once a silk factory, the museum overlooks the stunning 18th-century Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Monserrate and a neoclassical arch that dates back to the same era, part of Lisbon’s historic aqueduct system.

One of her final paintings, titled “Le départ,” completed in 1992, the same year she passed away, poignantly reflects her readiness to depart this world and reunite with her beloved Arpad.

Another significant piece, “Le retour d’Orphée” (The Return of Orpheus), reflects her emotional journey, during her husband’s illness and completed four years after his passing. In Museum Director Nuno Faria’s words Vieira da Silva “asks the gods of the underworld for a second life for her Orpheus,” revealing the profound depths of her love and loss.

On the other hand, Arpad’s 1939 portrait of Vieira, titled “Marie Helene,” captures the essence of the young artist at 30, elegantly poised with her legs tucked beneath her. Clad in a voluminous dress echoing the intricate patterns of traditional blue Portuguese tiles, she embodies both innocence and an unmistakable determination.

Their art is a testament to their profound love, a story vividly narrated through their paintings.

Despite living in Paris, Vieira da Silva remained deeply connected to her homeland, standing against the oppressive Salazar regime and championing anti-regime activists.

Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, she collaborated with renowned poet Sophia de Melo Breyner , creating posters adorned with lines of poetry in support of the revolution, most notably, “Poetry is in the Street” (A poesia está na rua). The proceeds from the sale of these posters were donated to support veterans from the bloody colonial wars that the revolution aimed to end.

Today, we celebrate the remarkable life of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, a woman whose passion for love, freedom, and democracy is an enduring example of how art can inspire a meaningful life.

Happy birthday, Maria Helena, let your legacy continue to illuminate our paths!

Ancak Lizbon’un göz bebeği Calouste Gulbenkian Müzesinde acilan sergi, diğerlerinden oldukca farkli.

Serginin İspanyol küratörü Eloy Martínez de la Pera Celada, bu çalışmayı “şimdiye kadar yapılmış en iyi moda sergisi” olarak tanımlıyor.

Ancak övgüleri üstlenmeden hemen ekliyor: “Bu benim sayemde değil; harika moda parçalarınin, Gulbenkian’ın eşsiz sanat koleksiyonuyla bir arada sergilenmesinden kaynaklanıyor.’’

“Sanat ve Moda” adını taşıyan bu etkinlik son 150 yıla damgasını vurmuş ikonik moda tasarımcılarına ait yaklaşık 134 parçayı, müzenin kendi değerli koleksiyonundan 100’den fazla sanat eseri, seramik, tekstil ürünü ve mobilyayla bir araya getiriyor.

Müzenin kurucusu, 1869 yılında İstanbuliun Uskudar semtinde doğan Osmanlı Ermenisi Calouste Gulbenkian, seçkin objeleri, tabloları, duvar halılarını, seramikleri ve tekstil ürünlerini toplayarak 20. yüzyılın en büyük koleksiyonerlerinden biri olarak bu muzeyi 1969 yilinda kurdu.

Bu sıra dışı adama neredeyse bir saygı duruşu niteliğinde olan sergi, Gulbenkian’ın 1892 yılındaki düğün fotoğrafıyla başlıyor.

Kusursuz bir şıklığa sahip gelin Nevarte Essayen ile damadın bu karesi, çiftin o dönemde bile modaya ve zarafete duyduğu hayranlığı gözler önüne seriyor.

Sergi sanat ve modanın sürekli bir disiplinlerarası diyalog içinde var olduğunu ve çağdaş tasarımcıların ressamlardan ve diğer sanatçılardan nasıl ilham aldıklarını göstermek ana fikrini basariyla gerceklestiriyor.

Her bölümde kostümler, arkalarında sergilenen tablolardan ve sanat eserlerinden fırlamışçasına, ortak bir güzellik içinde adeta canlanıyor.

Martínez de la Pera’nın sergi kataloğunda yazdığı gibi, ‘’haute couture’’ün büyük yaratıcıları; Mısır krallari portrelerinden, Yunan pişmiş toprak heykellerine, Orta Asya işlemelerinden, Rönesans sanatına kadar uzanan resim, heykel ve dekorasyon geleneklerinden ilham alarak “bu mirası çağdaş bir geçerliliğe dönüştürdüler.”

Sergide bunun çok sayıda çarpıcı örneği mevcut.

Mavi karanfil desenli bir Dries van Noten elbisesi, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun himayesindeki atölyelerde geliştirilen; turkuaz mavisi lale ve karanfil gibi tekrarlayan motiflerin öne çıktığı Türk “İznik” çinilerini adeta birebir kopyalıyor.

Jean Paul Gaultier elbisesi 16. yüzyıl Flaman sanatçısı Rubens’in bir tablosuyla diyalog kurarken; Alexander McQueen tasarımı, yine 16. yüzyıl Flaman ekolüne ait Meryem ve Çocuk İsa tablosuyla eşleşiyor. Christian Lacroix imzalı ipek şifon bir elbise ise, 17. yüzyılın Hollandalı ressamı Rembrandt’ın sanatı ile samimi bir sohbete dalıyor.

Sergide bir tasarımcı özellikle öne çıkıyor: Çinli modacı Guo Pei.

Kendisi, küratörün açık ara favorisi.

Cinli modacinin tiyatral kostumleri serginin her yerinde boy gösteriyor; giriş bölümünde bir Mısır tanrıçasını andıran ikonik altın sarısı bir gece elbisesi ziyaretçileri karşılıyor.

Tasarımcının kreasyonları; altın iplik işlemeler, Swarovski kristalleri, yapay elmaslar, kaz tüyleri ve titizlikle bir araya getirilmiş daha pek çok malzemenin yanı sıra, özenle hazırlanmış boyun, bilek ve baş aksesuarlarıyla olağanüstü bir el emeği barındırıyor.

Serginin açılış parçası olarak sergilenen; abartılı derecede uzun bir boynu saran gerdanlığı ve üzerinde taç benzeri dramatik bir başlığı bulunan o göz alıcı altın elbisenin, tasarımcının atölyesinde tam 50.000 saatlik bir çalışma gerektirdiği belirtiliyor.

Guo Pei, sarkici Rihanna’nın moda tarihinin en unutulmaz kırmızı halı anlarından birinde, 2015 Met Gala’da , yerleri süpüren imparatorluk sarısı pelerinini giymesiyle uluslararası bir şöhrete kavuşmustu.

Tasarımcının bu görkemli kreasyonları, daha sonra New York’taki Metropolitan Sanat Müzesi’nde de sergilendi.

Christian Dior, Versace, Chanel, Issey Miyake, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood gibi tasarimcilardan da ornekler sergilenen moda parçalarının yaklaşık yarısı Madrid’deki Museo del Traje’den (Giysi Müzesi) gelirken; diğerlerinin büyük kısmı Lizbon Tasarım Müzesi MUDE’nin Francisco Capelo koleksiyonundan ödünç alinmis.

Dort yıla yakin surede hazırlanan bu sergi süphesiz ki çok daha uzun süre açık kalmayı hak ediyor ancak 21 Haziran’da sona eriyor.

Günde yaklaşık 800 ziyaretçi ağırlayan bu etkinlik, şimdiden müze tarihinin en çok ziyaret edilen sergilerinden biri olmus durumda.

But he is quick to dismiss any personal credit.

“It is not because of me. It is because this is a great collection of fashion pieces displayed together with the unique art collection of the Gulbenkian,” Martínez de la Pera says.

Named “Art and Fashion”, it has become the city’s most talked-about exhibition, bringing together some 134 pieces by iconic fashion designers spanning the last 150 years, alongside more than 100 works of art, pottery, textiles and furniture from the museum’s own precious collection.

The museum’s founder, Calouste Gulbenkian, an Ottoman Armenian born in Istanbul in 1869, had an appetite for beauty. He became one of the 20th century’s greatest collectors, acquiring exquisite objects, paintings, tapestry, pottery, textiles wherever he found them.

His discerning eye is reflected throughout the exhibition and as a tribute to this unusual man, it begins with Gulbenkian’s wedding photograph in 1892. The impeccably dressed bride Nevarte Essayen and the groom reveal the couple’s appreciation for fashion and elegance even in that era.

The central idea of the exhibition is to demonstrate how art and fashion exist in constant interdisciplinary dialogue and how contemporary designers have drawn inspiration from painters and other artists.

In every section, the costumes appear to come alive from the paintings and artworks displayed behind them in a combined beauty.

As Martínez de la Pera writes in the catalogue, the great creators of haute couture drew inspiration from pictorial, sculptural and decorative traditions, ranging from Egyptian dynastic portraits and Greek terracottas to Central Asian embroidery and Renaissance art, “transforming their legacy into contemporary relevance.”

There are numerous striking examples.

A Jean Paul Gaultier dress enters into dialogue with a painting by the 16th Century Flemish artist Rubens, while an Alexander McQueen creation is paired with a 16th-century Flemish painting of the Virgin and Child, and Christian Lacroix’s silk chiffon dress is in an intimate talk with a 17th Century Dutch painter Rembrandt ’s art.

A Dries van Noten dress with a blue carnation-like pattern almost copies Turkish “Iznik” potteries that feature turquoise blue recurring motifs such as tulips and carnations developed in the workshops under the patronage of the Ottoman Empire.

One designer, however, stands out throughout the exhibition: the Chinese couturier Guo Pei.

She is clearly the curator’s favorite.

The theatrical masterpieces from her Beijing-based couture house appear throughout the exhibition, beginning with an iconic golden gown reminiscent of an Egyptian goddess at the entrance.

Her creations are extraordinarily labour-intensive, featuring gold-thread embroidery, Swarovski crystals, rhinestones, goose feathers and a multitude of other materials meticulously assembled alongside elaborate neck, wrist and head adornments.

The spectacular golden dress, displayed with a choker extending an exaggeratedly long neck and topped with a dramatic tiara-like headdress, as the opening piece of the exhibition, reportedly required 50,000 hours of work in her atelier.

Guo Pei achieved international fame when global singer and actor Rihanna wore her floor-sweeping imperial yellow cape at the 2015 Met Gala, one of the most memorable red-carpet moments in fashion history.

Her lavish creations were later featured in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

About half of the fashion pieces on display come from Madrid’s Museo del Traje (The Garment Museum), while most of the others are loaned from Lisbon’s Design Museum MUDE’s iconic Francisco Capelo collection, with unique items from Christian Dior, Versace, Chanel, Issey Miyake, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood and many others.

The exhibition was the brainchild of the museum’s former director, António Filipe Pimentel, who began developing the project with Martínez de la Pera in 2022.

The exhibition arguably deserves a longer run, but it closes on June 21. With around 800 visitors a day, it has become one of the most visited exhibitions in the museum’s history.

This is Lisbon Diaries.

thank you for joining me.

An article published recently in a major British newspaper hurt me deeply. I feel personally insulted.

And I suspect many Portuguese people would agree—although thankfully I doubt that British newspaper is part of their regular reading diet.

Let me tell you all about it:

The Sunday Times sent reviewer Rachel Johnson to Lisbon, and she returned declaring both bacalhau which is cod fish and the national soup caldo verde are “disgusting.”

Yes. She said DISGUSTING.

She wrote, “Life is too short for salt cod.” She described Portuguese food as simple, bland, and overly reliant on boiled potatoes.

She concluded that both bacalhau and caldo verde should be avoided.

Where do I even begin?

I n eed to stop here to remind the culinary culture is not britain’s highest point!

The Portuguese are the undisputed kings and queens of cod fish . It’s an acquired taste, certainly, but also a refined one. There are supposedly 365 ways to prepare it—one for every day of the year. Rachel Johnson’s advice? Avoid them all.

I couldn’t disagree more.

I love bacalhau à Brás (the version prepared with eggs, or the type baked in oven with olive oil and garlic or cod fish with spinach in creamy sauce I especially love versions served with sweet red onion jam that makes you pause mid-bite and appreciate life for a moment.

And whenever my stomach starts growling, I head to the nearest Portuguese café and order pastéis de bacalhau balls. Freshly fried, perfectly golden, impossible to resist.

I’m sorry Ms. Johnson missed all of this and sprinted toward an easy conclusion.

Then there’s caldo verde, the soup issue.

Portugal’s beloved soup is nourishing and deeply comforting. It’s food for the soul.It contains kale, one of the most healthy green.

You don’t have to love it. But calling it disgusting feels like culinary vandalism.

And then she attacks potatoes.

Potatoes! for god sake…

Clearly nobody introduced her to batatas a murro—those wonderful little potatoes gently crushed and roasted with garlic and olive oil.

My mouth is watering already.

To be fair, she admits she “wolfed down” a mixed platter of grilled fish and “toothsome prawns.” She also recommends Portugal’s fresh sardines.

Which suggests she came surprisingly close to appreciating Portuguese cuisine before taking a sharp turn in the opposite direction.

The trip itself may offer some clues.

She spent more than two hours stuck at the airport dealing with the EU’s new entry procedures. A reminder that Brexit occasionally has consequences.

Then a small dog bit her on a golf course.

I fear the animal sensed negative vibrations.

She even wrote that the bite felt worse than reporting trips she’d made to minefields in Ukraine, before joking that she wished the dog had bitten the legendary Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo instead.

She does praise Portugal’s weather, wine, hospitality, and beautiful tiles/

But a long airport queue had clearly left a bad taste in her mouth.

And I have one final suspicion.

I think she left Portugal without ever eating the national treasure custered creamy pie, pastel de nata.

If that’s true, then the entire trip was doomed from the start.

My deepest regrets.

Thank you for listening Lisbon Diaries.

Until next time, stay safe.

Here it is:

The Sunday Times, Britain’s biggest-selling broadsheet Sunday newspaper, sent reviewer Rachel Johnson to Lisbon as a guest of one of Portugal’s top tourism companies, and she declared both bacalhau and caldo verde “disgusting.”

She wrote, “Life is short for salt cod,” before adding: “…the fare is Mediterranean nursery food, prepared and served simply and blandly… Potatoes are boiled, there seems to be a lot of mush and let’s agree that the national dish of bacalhau and the equally ubiquitous caldo verde… are disgusting.”

Where shall I even begin?

The Portuguese are kings and queens of bacalhau, an acquired and refined taste. There are supposedly 365 ways to cook it and she suggests all variations should be “avoided.”

I love bacalhau à Brás, bacalhau assado, bacalhau de Natal, especially versions served with compota de cebola roxa, adding just enough sweetness to make you pause mid-bite in admiration.

And whenever my stomach growls, I walk into the nearest Portuguese café and order pastéis de bacalhau. They fry them on the spot and watch me devour them while a smile slowly settles across my face.

I am sorry Ms. Johnson missed all this and sprinted toward an easy conclusion.

As for caldo verde,the classic Portuguese soup,it is nourishing, healthy and deeply comforting. Call it food for the soul. But do not call it DISGUSTING.

Even England, where cuisine is perhaps not always the main attraction, discovered couve galega long ago and uses it extensively. Why does it suddenly become offensive when it enters a delicious soup?

Then she attacks potatoes.

Clearly nobody introduced her to batatas a murro , delicate potatoes split open and roasted with garlic and olive oil.

My mouth is already watering.

To be fair, she admits she “wolfed down” a mixed platter of grilled fish and “toothsome prawns,” while recommending readers stick to “fresh juicy sardines.”

A tiny clue she almost discovered Portuguese cuisine but refuses to admit it.

The trip, however, started badly. She spent more than two hours stuck at the airport under the EU’s new entry system. (Remember Brexit!)

Then a small dog bit her on the golf course. I fear the animal sensed negative vibrations.

She even wrote the bite felt worse than her reporting trips to Ukraine’s minefields, before joking she wished the dog had bitten Cristiano Ronaldo instead.

Her tongue-in-cheek praise of Portugal’s weather, wine, hospitality and azulejos cannot rescue the offensive content.

A long airport queue clearly left a bad taste in her mouth.

I suspect she left Portugal without devouring a pastel de nata.

My regrets.

This article was published at Diario de Noticias in Portuguese: https://www.dn.pt/opiniao-dn/adoro-bacalhau-e-caldo-verde-devo-ter-sido-portuguesa-numa-vida-anterior

This Is lisbon Diaries

Thank you for Joining me:

Today, I will talk about an exhibit in Lisbon that left a lasting impression on me:

It is about Portuguese artist José Pedro Croft’s exhibition now showing at Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon .

Most exhibits leave an impression for a day, maybe a week. But rarely, you encounter one that grows on you slowly, insistently. One where each visit reveals a new detail, a new tension, a new way of seeing.

That’s exactly the experience of visiting Croft’s exhibition, titled Reflections, Enclaves, Deviations.

It spans roughly twenty-five years of Croft’s work. And monumental is probably the best word for it.

Not only because of the scale of the sculptures, the mirrors, the drawings, and the installations, but because of the emotional and physical effect the work has on you as you move through the galleries.

Croft is considered one of the defining figures of Portuguese contemporary art after the Carnation Revolution. His work combines metal, glass, mirrors, color, and geometry with an obsessive attention to detail.

And obsession is actually a word he uses himself.

“I started as a neurotic and ended as an obsessive,’’ he jokes.

The obsession is his art .

You can feel it everywhere in the exhibit.

The mirrors are enormous. Framed in steel, they shift constantly as you walk around them. One second you see yourself. The next moment, the mirrors suddenly capture paintings hanging across the room, creating completely new compositions.

Nothing stays fixed.

Even the shadows seem carefully choreographed

.The sculptures appear unstable as if they’re leaning forward, about to collapse, yet somehow they resist gravity. Your eyes keep questioning what is balanced and what is not.

The work creates a constant dialogue between space, architecture, and the human body.

Portuguese curator Carlos Antunes once compared the experience of seeing Croft’s work to Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, that ideal figure discovering geometry through movement.

And movement is essential here.

You don’t just stand and look at Croft’s sculptures. You navigate them. Your body becomes part of the work.

The mirrors disorient you. The reflections relocate you.

Geometry suddenly feels emotional rather than mathematical.

Croft says he is interested in minimalism, but through an economic, cheap execution, adding he values the handmade, the error, and the contaminating hybrid..

He’s interested in tension. Imperfection. Friction.

What makes this exhibition especially meaningful is that Croft is returning to the same venue where he held a major show twenty-four years ago.

But this time, he returns as an internationally celebrated artist.

Today, his works belong to major collections from the Gulbenkian and Serralves museums in Portugal to the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and the Centre Pompidou in France.

In 2017, he represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale with six monumental mirrored sculptures installed outdoors on the island of Giudecca.

Again, the work explored unstable perspectives and shifting perception.

Born in 1957, Croft began his career after graduating from Lisbon’s School of Fine Arts. He worked as a high school art teacher before becoming assistant to the renowned Portuguese sculptor João Cutileiro.

Despite his international success, Croft remains remarkably modest and soft-spoken.

That characteristics somehow survives inside the work itself.

There’s no arrogance in these monumental pieces.

Instead, there’s curiosity.

A constant questioning of balance, perception, and how we occupy space.

The exhibition is also brilliantly curated by Luiz Camillo Osorio, who creates conversations between the sculptures, drawings, and installations. The pieces seem to echo one another across the galleries.

Croft alters the way you look at space itself.

You begin noticing reflections differently in daily life. Windows. Shadows. Angles of buildings. Distances between objects.

The exhibition at Lisbon’s Centro Cultural de Belém runs until September 13.

And honestly, one visit probably won’t be enough.

This is the kind of exhibition that asks you to return, because every time you do, something shifts.

This is Zeynep Tinaz Redmont.

Thank you for joining me.

Until next time, stay safe.