TCHIM-TCHIM: the Big Party
Futuros da Liberdade, Mala. Ajuda, Lisboa
18 – 21 April 2024
50 Year Celebration of the 25 of April — Carnation Revolution, reinstated democracy in Portugal.
BEFORE
To be in anticipation of a big party is a pleasure. This pleasure is proportional to the pace of what brews within - for those used to letting expectations run wild, it is an incubation period to slowly measure one’s own desire for the future; like a cherished secret that is about to be.
This year the weeks leading up to the 25 of April melted into each other. It was hard to avoid butterflies since lately a lot of clumsy discourse had been aimed at downplaying what took place in and after April 1974 in Portugal. And yet, this month enacted the full spectrum of meanings within the Carnation Revolution — also for those who didn't live through it, and for those who are yet to come: a glowing celebration everywhere. A stand, too, against the thick fogginess prompted by the political events of the preceding weeks (topped by a neck-to-neck election which turned out more ominous than predicted). But no fog would be thick enough to overshadow the imminent festivities of the best holiday in the Portuguese calendar.
This April, I witnessed how Lisbon shifted and how the collective feeling of appreciation for what changed 50 years ago intensified. Celebrations were prepared with great energy and through a wider and more dispersed network of financial and institutional support than in previous years (as was only right). This text serves to highlight an initiative that was almost unprecedented in Portugal and that cannot go unreported: it was unforgettable for those who were there, and it had those special features that mark subtle changes in current, that refocus concerns and establish conditions for what’s most meaningful to culture: free and absolute expression of ideas.
Futuros da Liberdade [Freedom’s Futures], the festival organized by Mala and Joana Krämer Horta, took place at (and in collaboration with) the Ajuda Local Council in Lisbon between 18 and 21 April 2024. Mala, an exhibition project founded and directed by Henrique Loja and Sofia Montanha in Ajuda since 20211, stretched its reach from its main art space to the Oficina das Artes, the local Market, the Multiusos Pavilion and Jardim das Damas. The festival’s program embodied the organizers’ heterogeneous and generous approach to cultural production.
Thursday, 18 April 2024
Mala
Casas num Beco by Mauro Cerqueira, 5:00 PM
The opening of Casas num beco, by Mauro Cerqueira, inaugurated the festival on Thursday, April 18 at Mala, Ajuda. On until June 23, 2024.
The exhibition space at Mala is a meeting of happy circumstances. It's rectangular with a glass storefront opening onto a quiet, sloping street. Outside, Monobloc chairs and a camping table, jars of red carnations and bottles merged with a small crowd, visible from way down the street — amidst cars, motorcycles, and the warm afternoon sun behind the buildings.
Looking from the outside in, rectangular shapes lined up on the walls seem familiar, hanging high. But they're not canvases or framed drawings — they're real estate advertising boards, FOR SALE or FOR RENT. They've been remodeled, made into ground surfaces for a rigorous practice of disfigurement, like a remix crafted with some love and some revenge. Mauro, co-founder and responsible (with André Sousa) for A Certain Lack of Coherence2 for 18 years, is well versed in Porto's alleys and the root processes of Portugal’s seemingly unstoppable housing crisis, speculation and real estate pressure3 holding entire cities hostage.
As a testimony to his friendship with many residents and occupants of Porto’s alleys, they have also crucially intervened in the exhibited works, as in a collaborative assemblage workshop over the unwanted real estate cardboards. It’s possible to see slivers of human faces beneath the artistic reinventions performed by Mauro and company; a silhouette of the estate agent, some numbers, some logos. The pieces have the same palpability as a universal drawer dedicated to the lost objects of houses: meetings of old candles, post-its, watches without batteries, worn-out pens, 10x15 photographs and lidless glue sticks.
It’s a special treat to enjoy this new employment of the posters, hung up high on the walls of Mala as they usually are from windows and balconies, or as they were before Mauro took them and made them lovable. Before artistic intervention, these were symbols of inaccessibility; consider the private indoor spaces behind the marked façades — often in historically working-class neighborhoods — soon reserved for some investment roulette, disrupting any sense of secure housing for the vast majority of the population. That is a side effect of the signage, cautioning: it will soon be different here.
As Paula Ferreira writes in the exhibition text, Mauro’s works strike “a very fragile balance between the expression of latent anger and affectionate nostalgia” in the choice of materials and essential collectivity of the impressions left on the surfaces, of the attached little objects — small gifts left by neighborhood comrades (and artistic co-conspirators), as Mauro explained to me. Little treasures from other lives, other characters who we find represented despite their absence, like Pirata4 or Leonel.
The festival's first event was rendered even more relevant by a sequence of housing-related incidents in the same week. Days before the 25 April celebrations, Loures City Council decided to demolish a number of houses in Bairro do Zambujal, a self-built neighbourhood, without prior eviction notice to the residents and without a viable housing alternative as required by law; people were left homeless and without alternatives5. On 25 April, a historic building in Lisbon was occupied and revived as Santa Engrácia Cultural Centre6; it had been abandoned for 16 years prior to the occupation. After a few days, the occupation was interrupted by police intervention and doors and windows were nailed shut. In Ajuda, a proudly working-class neighbourhood, Mauro's works were on show; just a stone's throw away was Bairro 2 de Maio, occupied after the revolution in 1974 by workers and still standing today. Occupations and (forced) evictions, speculation and housing. One city is many cities.
Friday, 19 April 2024
Oficina das Artes
The body remembers, workshop by António Onio, 3:00 PM
From the dwelling to the body that dwells
It's interesting to unpack what is expected of cultural institutions: that they should be open and accessible spaces, that they should programme for the public and for the context, the place and what is needed. We know how difficult it is, in contemporary art circuits, to implement real accessibility (one that isn't totally superficial).
Openings are fun for artists and curators, friends of friends and guests, but uncomfortable for everyone else. The palpable discomfort of the public in environments surrounding the public presentation of art is a symptom of this lack of openness. But fortunately there are places and frameworks — often non-institutional — where the ground is primed for moments of action, with people coming together in exercises of freedom and self-perception where it is precisely the discomfort of the body and its meaning that take centre stage in the discussion.
Feeling one's body blocked, or that its movement is inadequate, is a personal condition. But in its privacy, it's a generalised sensation; everybody knows this obstruction, which in itself limits experience in space and with others. Feeling constricted is therefore a self-imposed delimitation, learnt unintentionally and fed by the twist of time. It then becomes essential to inscribe the movement of the body in the festival, to explore the possibility of untangling and to practise the right to take up space.
Friday afternoon was spent at Oficina das Artes da Ajuda, a local council space remodelled and reopened as a cultural hub in 2021. The workshop O Corpo se lembra [The Body Remembers], by António Onio, was open to everyone and aimed in particular at non-dancers. The intention: to explore the concept of freedom combined with movement through somatic techniques and to dance from memory, but old memory from the time when people didn't yet sheepishly say ‘I don't know how to dance’. Or, as António told me, ‘ranging from childhood memories to the memory of the sea cucumber that existed billions of years ago’.
Women and April
Talk with Carla Filipe and Teresa Coutinho (contribution by Maria Teresa Horta), moderated by Joana Horta. 7:00 PM
In the late evening we gathered at Oficina das Artes, which by 7pm had only a few empty seats left. In the centre, surrounded by carnations, sat Teresa Coutinho, actress and playwright; Joana Horta, festival producer and mediator; and Carla Filipe, artist.
It could’ve been due to António's workshop earlier in the day and its spirit of agility, but the audience was totally at ease — neighbourly, bantering — even before the conversation started. The chatter seemed contagious. As soon as Joana began the introductions, a voice was heard from the back row of seats, demanding “stronger lungs” as if bartering for voice power at a market7.
The great paths of the guests were introduced and a tribute was paid to Maria Teresa Horta (who was unable to attend) in the voice of Teresa Coutinho who, energetic and eloquent, spoke in the way only stage actors seem to know how — tunneling attentions — to present the book lying on the center table, Poesia Reunida by Maria Teresa Horta. She leafed through the book and recited a selection of poems, almost impromptu.
Mulheres de Abril
somos
mãos unidas
certeza já acesa
em todas
nós
Juntas formamos
fileiras
decididas
ninguém calará
a nossa
voz
Mulheres de Abril
somos
mãos unidas
na construção
operária
do país
Nos ventres férteis
a vontade
erguida
de um Portugal
que o povo
quis8
Artist Carla Filipe prepared a rare moment — a presentation on the endless lines of research that underpin her artistic practice and which are rarely shown, or rather, directly explained. The precision of Mala's invitation to Carla Filipe for this conversation with Teresa Coutinho was felt when the large projection of the first slide of the presentation lit up the room. It read:
A Mulher no Mundo (The Woman in the World)
2 volumes, 1952
— Maria Lamas
When an artist dedicates to the intensive study of histories, she sets out to run marathons. Centuries back, centuries ahead; various geographical locations; organic relationships between dusty-covered vanished editions, annotated by vanished people, and obscure magazines filled with twisted details and shiver-inducing wording.
In Carla Filipe’s work, the hours spent tracing particular narratives and treating documental material are rendered visible when the works intend to do so; deeper lines of research are not usually meant to be articulated or exhibited, but certainly materialize in the mysterious ways of artistic research.
Carla then decided to present her current main project, which is an analysis of the literary and visual work of Maria Lamas. In As Mulheres do Meu País [Women from My Country], Maria Lamas carried out an unprecedented and comprehensive study of the living conditions of women in Portugal in the 40s and 50s of the last century9; she set out to fight for the emancipation of women amid persecution, imprisonment and exile. The presentation was punctuated by excerpts from the publication As Mulheres Portuguesas e o 25 de Abril [Portuguese Women and 25 April], with a text by Beatrice D'Arthuys, published in 1977; critical perspectives on poverty in Portugal and the fundamentally miserable condition of being female (“(...) women have no class, they are the last of the classes”10).
We discussed many of Maria Lamas‘ photographs11 and annotations in her volumes, made during incessant trips to the corners of the country over a period of three years, as well as how Lamas’ thorough testimony evidenced the hard working conditions of women, in contrast to Estado Novo's fantasy of the feminine; but above all we talked about the need to properly inscribe and recognise the importance of Maria Lamas and her work in anthropological study and in the history of Portuguese feminism. There was also an accelerated reporting of some notes from A Mulher no Mundo12 and from publications of the time — mostly expressions and words collected by Carla (such as the instructions, in Revista Eva13, for the simultaneous organisation of one day in the life of a mistress and her maid14). Carla's fascination with Maria Lamas extended to everyone present, and the topic of the presentation was a happy coincidence: the audience was mostly made up of Ajuda residents, many of whom witnessed the social changes since the 25 April and some of whom had witnessed the times recorded by Maria Lamas in this research. There were many interventions from the audience and comments on the factual inequalities suffered by women, drawing bridges to the present and wishes for the future.
When the presentation was switched off and the audience went quiet, Joana asked Teresa:
What specific challenges do women artists face in expressing their visions and experiences in the post-25 April context?
Joana's important question could have fueled hours of discussion. It instantly seemed that everyone in the room understood, even abstractly, the challenges. This sense of clear, mutual understanding is the kind of feeling you get at a concert when a group of people become a unity: and for a few moments, true collectivity sparks. Teresa’s answer delivered that spark as she addressed the current concerns of women that one feels growing like stubborn splinters, such as the casually suggested regression in acquired rights, sluggishly omnipresent since the recent legislative elections — the tendency as political paradigms shift towards conservatism. Teresa articulated a powerful reminder that these struggles are not from another era, when rights were won by the hand of many, many people; they are a long test of resistance that is up to all of us and that will always be up to those who, with their art and work, have the will to communicate. The artists' job will be to exercise the freedom we've been living in for 50 years, while never taking it for granted, every day and in every word and gesture.
The incoherent threat is sad but real; the response is assured, assumed and understood. Heads nodded together, contributions were applauded and carnations handed out.
Saturday, 20 April 2024
SELECTED REVOLUTIONARY POETRY SESSION
Jardim das Damas
Gisela Casimiro and André Tecedeiro, 4:00 PM
Cachupa by: Mrs Amélia Mascarenhas
Some things strike each time as if it was the first. An example: how poetry affects people. Another example: upon arriving at the top of Calçada da Ajuda, coming from Monsanto, an unexpected and surreal vision rises up on the left — it is the new Royal Treasury Museum, so white and geometric it is blinding, like a LED 3D model. It's hard to believe that the building is real. Fortunately, it's far less difficult to believe in the lasting effects of poetry.
The cautious use of language is a quietly acknowledged heritage among the Portuguese. It’s not that Portuguese language is particularly ceremonious (it might even be the opposite: its usage is at its best in the realms of profanity). Instead, the reason for such wariness evolved from a faraway habit of understanding the unsaid, in consideration for the unfriendly operations of the political police. Communications thrived by seeking subtlety with acts of omission and figures of speech, of images painted with words crafted in such a way as to avoid calling things by their names. And then there was poetry, which was the practice of complaining and sharing and giving strength: the censor's headache.
Jardim das Damas, adjacent to the Ajuda Palace/Royal Treasury Museum, is divided in two floors. On the upper parapet cachupa and drinks were served; downstairs, benches were set up in front of two high chairs to listen to the reading by Gisela Casimiro — writer, artist, poet and activist — and the poet André Tecedeiro. Between them stood a pile of books. After two days of sunshine and warmth the weather forecast thunderstorms that afternoon, but there was a warm wind running through the garden. Gisela and André read in turns: Sophia de Mello Breyner, Natália Correia, Miguel Torga, Ary dos Santos, Jorge de Sena, Sérgio Godinho, Manuel Alegre, Jorge Luís Borges, Judite Canha Fernandes, Inês Francisco Jacob, Agostinho Neto, Amílcar Cabral, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, and their own poems. Between bravos and applause at the end of each poem read aloud, the audience took deep breaths and doubled attention for the next contribution. To give a glimpse of the tone:
Judite Canha Fernandes, Sem título (Poemas da Amadora)
despejar pessoas devia dar prisão
por corrupção de tudo
até do coração.
In O mais difícil do capitalismo é encontrar o sítio onde pôr as bombas, Urutau, 2021.
Gisela Casimiro, Sem título
1.
Abril — o cravo vem
chamar a liberdade
Para brincar
2.
Na mesa de voto
escrevi o poema
a revolução
3.
Uns pulmões que
faísquem na voz –
a ignição da revolução
4.
Meço a minha liberdade
por quantas pessoas
ainda falta libertar
5.
Do sangue feito seiva
brota a flor da marcha
concreta da liberdade15
Once Gisela and André's selection was finished, the session opened up to requests from the audience. An assertive voice was heard: O coito do Morgado!16 and then another voice: José Fanha, Eu sou Português Aqui!17
LISTENING SESSION
Jardim das Damas
Polido, 6:00 PM
At the end of the poetry session there was a break to prepare the next event. Heavy clouds gradually covered the sun, wind blowing in different directions. At 6pm, Polido — musician and artist — knelt down on the cushion in front of his set-up, connected to large speakers on the left and right, and introduced the session he had prepared. Polido works on the meaning, intention and use of traditional/popular Portuguese music as a central part of the construction of shared identity, from its idealisation by António Ferro's Politics of the Spirit (and the so-called folklorisation process) to the urgency, in the 1970s, of recovering lost music through documentation and dissemination of musical expressions hitherto considered dissident (and which were a fundamental part of the workers' struggle).
Thus the second part of Futuros da Liberdade unfolded. From words and poetry we moved on to sound and music as an iconic legacy of the revolution that cannot be overstated.
The listening session offered by Polido was interspersed with explanations of what we were hearing. On two turntables, he played recordings by Michel Giacometti18, made across the country before and after the Revolution, and collaborations with Lopes-Graça19; various collections of rural music traditions recorded during democracy, like those of José Alberto Sardinha; songs alluding to agrarian reform (honourable mention: Grupo de Acção Cultural - Cantiga sem Maneiras [Impolite Song], comp. José Mário Branco, 1976); a composition by Jorge Peixinho in tribute (Elegia) to Amílcar Cabral; José Afonso who couldn't be left out; Luís Cília (Contra a Ideia da Violência, a Violência da Ideia, 1974); and other contemporary compositions that reworked traditional songs and dances, such as Três Velhos Fandangos Portugueses by Lopes-Graça interpreted by pianist Olga Prats (1973).
Tiny droplets of rain fell from the cloudy sky and seemed perfectly timed with what we were listening to. In a kind of harmonious choreography, a blue tent was brought out to keep the records dry.
The format of the listening session is calm and unhurried. Pieces are played, briefly introduced, and followed by a few minutes of uncertain contemplation. Questions arise from the depths of our consciousness: do we all hear the same? The recordings are gently started and withdrawn, in a continuous sequence but not as though they were telling a linear story. Instead, it is an environment that is built from scratch, relying primarily and solely on sound, Polido’s occasional word, and visual reference to the album covers. And it’s impressive how much space that sound occupies – the sheer volume is monumental, even in open air and with the distant rumble of the storm happening across town. It was so simple and so effective that memory insists on recalling it as a play in many acts: we leap from Alentejo to Beira, Lisbon, Cape Verde, repression, revolution, reform.
The final recording was assigned to the actions validated in collectiveness: Os Homens que Vão Para a Guerra (Douro Litoral) [The Men Who Go to War], an acapella choral work by Lopes-Graça.
Os homens que vão prá guerra, vão morrer.
Os homens que vão prá guerra, vão pra nunca mais voltar.
Diz adeus a pai e mãe, que vos não torno a ver.
Diz adeus a pai e mãe, que vos não torno a abraçar.
The live recording of the Choir of the Academia de Amadores de Música was made at Coliseu dos Recreios on 25 May 1974, organised by the National Commission for the Relief of Political Prisoners. The recording is followed by an absolute furore from the audience at Coliseu and in chorus they shout:
END OF THE WAR
END OF THE WAR
END OF THE WAR.
Saturday Night, 20 April 2024
Pavilhão Multiusos da Ajuda
Lena D'Água and Benjamim concert, 9:00 PM
Nídia, Dj set 11:00 PM
On Saturday night, the Ajuda Multiusos (the local multi-use sports hall) transformed into the centre of Lisbon. Nighttime brings unexpected things – except that night, which Mala prepared and promoted with exceptional skill so that everyone knew what to expect.
Lena d'Água, an absolute icon of Portuguese music, released the album Desalmadamente in 2019 — thirty years after her last solo album of original songs, Tu Aqui. The concert with Benjamim, at 9 PM, was followed by a set by Nídia, producer and arguably the best DJ in the country. Nídia is part of the record label Príncipe Discos, a now mythical collective of Afro-descendant producers organising the best nights in Lisbon20. She released her second album, Não Fales Nela que a Mentes, in May 2020 (many will remember the impact of that release, and many more will still have some of those tracks at the top of their playlists until 2030, at least). 95 MINDJERES, her new album from 2023, references the 95 women who joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in the 1960s, trained by the militant and heroine of Guinean liberation Titina Silá and led by Teodora Gomes, to fight for the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde21. Titina Silá was assassinated by Portuguese soldiers in an ambush while on her way to Amílcar Cabral’s funeral, the leader of the party and its cause, in Conakry on January 30 of 1973. On the anniversary of Titina Silá's death, Guinea-Bissau celebrates National Women's Day in honor of her fight for equal rights and the independence of her country. It was for the independence of colonised countries that the 25 April [Revolution] was made and Nídia's album remembers those women who gave their lives against repression with what she does best.
The night's program was so promising that the only surprise would have been if it were anything less than extraordinary.
The stage was at the center of the indoor sports pitch. The only light came from the bars at each goalpost, marking the limits of the field, and warm spotlights on the stage. The expectant audience filled up the long benches and the front of the stage, waiting in the dark. The chatter reverbering through the high walls of the pavilion turned into applause when Benjamim and the incomparable Lena d'Água took to the stage. She started softly singing:
Faltam dois minutos para entrar…
A cortina vai levantar…22
The next few hours were a mixture of emotion and disbelief reserved only for those who were there. Lena d'Água, better than ever, is a living symbol of what Portugal was like in the 1980s, but nostalgia is only a small part of her performance’s power23. Nídia really is the best DJ in Portugal: focused, competent, unstoppable.
Sunday, 21 April 2024
Ajuda Market
Grupo Coral Alentejano da Ajuda, 3:30 PM
Performance by Lara Dâmaso, 4:30 PM
The last day of the festival brought on the last location in Ajuda to become a temporary platform for celebration and exchange under Mala’s eclectic artistic programming. The final events took place in the Ajuda Market, one of several such dedicated buildings serving Lisbon neighborhoods.
Sunday afternoon started with Grupo Coral Alentejano da Ajuda, a choral group formed in 2017 by Ajuda residents with strong ties to the Alentejo region and its musical traditions. The previous night was still fresh in the memory and somehow the idea of hearing Cante Alentejano at the Ajuda Market felt familiar, like the feeling of having the same dream a second time (it was no dream). Because less than twenty-four hours had passed since the revolutionary poetry and listening session in Jardim das Damas, dispositions were primed for the voices of Grupo Coral despite Cante Alentejano being something else entirely: after all, one thing is the recitation of words of resistance, or the construction of atmospheres through precious recordings of a country in revolution; and another is seeing a live Cante Alentejano choir in a market, on a sunny Sunday, after a night at the Multiusos.
The group gathered in the middle of the market stalls; the women wore aprons, blue head scarves and hats. They held their hands in front of their bodies in a position transmitting a stability as rooted as a tree and an unpretentious pride, as if ready to fulfil a task. And then that persistent sound of the Cante Alentejano, an intangible cultural heritage, started vibrating – sung in that very tangible way that is bound to the hard labour of farming and, naturally, to the struggle of the Alentejo workers and their victories. Ó Baleizão Baleizão, Moda do Limoeiro, and to finish, Grândola Vila Morena with the audience joining in chorus, and carnations were handed out as we had grown used to.
-
Without interruption, the performance by Lara Dâmaso began. Lara, a Swiss artist of Portuguese descent24, climbed onto the long counters across the space where Grupo Coral had sung and from which they were now dispersing to become the audience. Lara moved slowly and tensely, between breaths, in what seemed to be total control of every small muscle. As the festival programme notes, the artist explores the “cathartic potential of vocal expression”, and there's no better way to describe it; Lara danced, crouched, expanded and then produced, with the energy of an entire body, the sound that said body allowed her to project.
The moment of head-on collision with what we're not used to seeing is very powerful, and it was (and always will be) an experience for those who saw Lara perform for the first time. That shock reverberated throughout the market and gradually turned into a collective, hypnotic trance — magnetic, in the sense that it is hard to look away from the performance.
As I watched Lara move, I focused on her feet – in white socks and clogs – and the sound of the wooden soles on the cold stone of the market counters where one usually finds produce or fish laid out on ice, and felt a physical guttural memory of entering the cold ocean, when it feels like your heart is going to your throat.
AFTERWARDS
At the end of the performance and the festival, there was a feeling of great joy and satisfaction.
Mala had set out to organise a festival to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 25 of April, after organising a first edition celebrating the holiday in 2023. The idea of a festival is unexpected and courageous. No matter how much one intends to foster openness in circulation and presentation of contemporary artistic practices – be it in its production, accessibility or documentation – there are previously established formats already well known and which would be far easier to enact than what Mala set out to do. It's meaningful to remember that Mala (which began as Supermala, an itinerant exhibition project25) is a gallery, where Henrique and Sofia programme and curate contemporary art. There is a long distance between conceiving contemporary art exhibitions, as Mala has regularly done, and organising a four-day festival; it's a different energy, dedication and practice. The festival they organised went far beyond the curation of exhibitions, hence the joyous relief – it was the expectation created by the programme. In the end it promised a lot, but delivered even more.
TCHIM-TCHIM to Sofia, Henrique, Joana, all the artists involved, the local council and all the supporters. May many more such festivals be held, and may there always be this much will to celebrate the best day of the year in this way.
— — —
This text was written with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
1. After the collective (artistic) curatorial project Supermala, established in 2020.
2. A space where, during my first visit in 2012, there was an exhibition by Tiago Afonso showcasing footage of the implosion of a tower in Bairro do Aleixo, Porto. It was one of the first non-institutional exhibitions I saw. See more: https://www.publico.pt/2019/05/11/local/reportagem/aleixo-conta-historia-porto-1872158
3. Centro Comercial Stop, transformed into a cultural center by musicians and artists, is a well-known example from the city of Porto that is worth exploring. Its situation is proof of the disconnection between public administrations and the artist-organized spaces created out of necessity. This issue is currently on hold after eviction attempts and covert plans for the land surrounding the building.
4. El Pirata, a dear artist-friend from A Certain Lack of Coherence, now deceased. https://acloc-86-elpirata.blogspot.com/
5. The arbitrary manner in which the local government proceeded with demolitions without providing alternatives for residents, during the week of the 25 of April celebrations, reveals a sense of total impunity from the local government. The Vida Justa project (vidajusta.pt) stood with the residents, collecting testimonies. More information: https://sicnoticias.pt/video/2024-04-09-Cinco-casas-ilegais-demolidas-no-bairro-do-Zambujal-em-Loures-ec7431cb
6. https://stopdespejos.wordpress.com/2024/05/03/centro-social-e-cultural-de-santa-engracia-despejo-ilegal-de-uma-realidade-amada-pelos-vizinhos/
7. It was a spontaneous outbreak of collective deafness, the kind one sees a lot when there are no microphones.
8. By Maria Teresa Horta, in Poesia Reunida, Dom Quixote, 2009.
9. As Mulheres do Meu País, published in installments between 1948 and 1950, reissued in 2024 by Público.
10. Quote from page 31, As Mulheres Portuguesas e o 25 de Abril, with text by Beatrice D’Arthuys. Photographs by Alain Mingam and Sylvain Julienne. Afrontamento, Porto, 1976.
11. On display at the Gulbenkian in the exhibition As Mulheres de Maria Lamas, until May 28, 2024.
12. Encyclopedic work by Maria Lamas, published in 1952. “A MULHER NO MUNDO is the History of Woman and not of a few women. Therefore, thinking of all women, I never lost sight of those general conditions nor of the obscure and heroic woman who has, after all, been the great sacrifice in the slow, complex, and painful progress of humanity, through millennia.” — a quote from Maria Lamas, unofficially translated by the author and shared by Carla Filipe during the presentation.
13. Revista Eva, Jornal da Mulher e do Lar, with excerpts shown here from 1939-1945.
14. Some are nostalgic for such times and in creating corresponding legal statuses, as had just been revealed in the news a few days earlier, a topic that did not go unmentioned.
15. Published in Público newspaper, April 8, 2024.
16. [Morgado’s coitus] by Natália Correia. “In 1982, the Portuguese Parliament debated the decriminalization of abortion. The then Conservative Party’s deputy, João Morgado, argued: ‘The sexual act is to make children.’ Natália Correia (at the time an MP elected by the PPD) took to the podium to respond with a very original poem. The laughter forced a halt to the proceedings.” Extracted from https://www.esquerda.net/dossier/o-coito-do-morgado/16988
17. [I Am Portuguese Here]. Available at https://www.portugal-linha.pt/literatura/25Abril/poem2.html
18. Michel Giacometti, born in Corsica in 1929, was a significant collector of Portuguese rural music. Between 1959 and 1982, he created sound recordings (with a tape recorder) across the country in an extensive survey of musical practices. He was also involved in the dissemination of these practices through television programs, the creation of archives, and the establishing of museums.
19. As described in the Encyclopedia of Music in Portugal in the 20th Century, "It is largely thanks to Lopes-Graça that the vision of popular music as a powerful means to stimulate political action and societal transformation is established. (...) For the musicians associated with 'Portuguese popular music,' some of them collectors, the collection and phonographic work of Lopes-Graça and Giacometti (...) were among the main foundations for processes of musical creativity, reinforcing 'popular music' as a vehicle for 'cultural militancy.'" "One of the results of the collaboration with Giacometti was the release, between 1960 and 1971, of the Anthology of Portuguese Regional Music, five albums of sound recordings," 2010. Volume 2, pp. 426-427.
20. Noite Príncipe. https://principediscos.wordpress.com/
21. PAIGC, a party founded by Amílcar Cabral in 1961 with the goal of achieving the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Angola.
22. Minutos, from the album Desalmadamente, 2019.
23. Even though, among songs from Desalmadamente and a cover of Estou Além (by António Variações), there was Demagogia and, after relentless applause and whistles at the end of the concert, Sempre que o amor me quiser, her biggest hit of the 80s.
24. Mala had already presented a performance by Lara Dâmaso at the 15th anniversary of MACE (Aqui Somos Rede, 2022), at the Sociedade de Instrução e Recreio in Elvas, on one of the hottest late afternoons I can remember. Lara performed, that time, on the large terrace of a building in front of the wide-open landscape of Elvas.
25. Exhibitions inside handbags.