On the day that marks its 23rd anniversary, on 25 June 2020, Centro Português de Fotografia (CPF) opens a new exhibition to the public, the first one after the lockdown. The exhibition named "Jogo de Espelhos: a cidade fragmentada e a fotografia fragmento através da C.N.F." comprises images from Coleção Nacional de Fotografia. "Since the beginning of the nineteen seventies, before the distance shortened and time became instantaneous by technological means, the urban world was already seen as fragmented, shattered and fictional, which refers this perception to a learning definitely restricted by photography." This exhibition is open until 13 September 2020. CPF is housed at the Former Prison and Court of Appeal of Porto.

National Geographic has explored the planet for over 130 years and is distinguished by challenging, protecting and inspiring humanity to go beyond. It all started in 1888 with an invitation, which brought together the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society in Washington D.C. Among them geologists and cartographers, bankers and lawyers, scientists and military leaders began to delineate the purpose of the organisation. Everyone believed that science coupled with a clearer perception of our world would have the power to change it, improving it. With neither staff nor headquarters, the National Geographic Society began charting new routes, discovering new cultures and going beyond. We celebrate Alexander Graham Bell, Amelia Earheart, Alexander Graham Bell, Robert A. Bartlett, Richard E. Byrd, Barry Bishop, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Dian Fossey, Jacques Cousteau, Robert E. Peary, and so other big names in the National Geographic’s history. To share the expeditions, discoveries and scope, the National Geographic magazine was created in 1888. Its first edition was sent to an exclusive list of 200 members. In 2015, the National Geographic Partners was founded and its platform reaches over 450 million people, 43 languages, in 172 countries every month. The will of our 33 founders was fulfilled. We reached the four corners of the earth and went further. 131 years later, we continue to point our lenses at the most inhospitable places and the harshest realities of our planet, we continue to pursue big questions and challenge thoughts once accepted, we continue to protect and inspire humanity to go beyond. But none of this would be possible without your contribution. Thanks to you we have already awarded over 14,000 research grants, supporting ambitious projects in the areas of science, exploration and conservation. When you read, watch, buy or travel with us, you are supporting the work of our scientists, explorers and educators around the world. Because of you, our cause exists. Thank you for helping us contribute to a more sustainable planet.

There are more than 5 million Lego bricks, spread over 2,000 square meters, totalling about 100 sets, in 12 themed areas. Includes recreations of iconic films such as the Titanic or the Star Wars saga. With the potential to attract people of all ages, it combines fun with knowledge, as one of the themed areas recreates the human body in LEGO, thus becoming a Biology lesson from a different perspective. For fans of the Star Wars saga, this exhibition is also a must-visit, featuring spaceships, characters, lightsabres, iconic scenes from the films, as there is a strong likelihood of being wowed by the detail put into each reconstruction. The Battle of Coruscant, Trench Run or TIE Fighter are some of the recreations on display in the Star Wars District. The trip is made not only to the futuristic world of this cult series, but also to the historical past, romanticized by the film Titanic. For the Lego construction of the most famous ship of the 20th century, about three meters high and 11 meters long, around 500 thousand bricks were used. There is also a zone dedicated to characters from superhero films to scale, like Captain America or Thor; a 1:1 scale Avenue of Sports Stars, where Robert Lewandowski is on the list; a zone of robotics and fantasy; an animation area, which include the famous blue creatures, The Smurfs, among other attractions, such as train track scale models, and recreations of high-speed train models (Pendolino, ICE and TGV).

We see the Douro through the eyes of pioneering photographers: the magnificence of the terraces descending in gentle waves to the river, the bridges and tunnels by Emílio Biel, the work of the vineyard and the grape harvest of his apprentice, Domingos Alvão, the mimosas or the almond trees in bloom of the Estado Novo tourism. When the colour arrived, the overlapping hues of solstices’ gold and the old reds. This was and is the mythical Douro, with rabelos boats sailed by sailors, descending in a queue to the pier, the barrels towards the warehouses of Gaia. This Douro remains on postcards and advertising pamphlets. Carlos Cardoso, year after year, rebuilt today's Douro, maintaining the reality of its permanencies and changes, in black and white, between the memory of the images and their meaning, which only the contrast of shadow and light can make it clearer. Almost immutable in the time of the Ages, the ancient rocks, the granite of the Iberian massif, the shale of its torrid crushing. The shale blades challenged men and forged the destiny of the vineyard, they are the matrix of the territory. The photographer shows us his power, on the paths, in the blockades, on the ground of almond trees and vineyards, but also the raw material for his direct use and, here and there, the failure of the rock in the face of vegetation or the sign of permanence depending on the divine. On this matrix basis, the men produced the terraces according to their needs, then the levels according to the machines. The civilization of communication appropriates the Douro from the railway and explodes with the road. The landscape is made with iron beams, concrete and reinforced concrete spirals, in an old and new figure. To clarify this, there are no baskets for transporting grapes and protecting glass: the road culture is also that of plastic and ephemeral. So, because it is a photographic look, a new collection of images turns abandonment, neglect and discouragement into beautiful images of remains, of impure signs of pure longing. A visible unity is defined between the gaps in the shale blades, in their illusory solidity and the constructions that speak of the technical levels of man's culture. Both crumble, cover themselves with weeds, tear under the vital impulse of the trees: both speak of a past and a changing present. The shale layers dismantle like the railway tracks, defining new layers of ground. The abandoned stations, created to assert their Portuguese nature, are invaded by a thicket and desolation. Sometimes the two worlds of the old recent and the new intersect, in the geometry of the equipment, but always, always the greatest geometry are the mountains that reduce the scar the road that tears them. This built, marked and suffered Douro is doomed to be a dazzle. The matrix undulating of the mountains is deepened with concentric lines and the very white verticals of the levels; the precipices, the starry shales of gleams, the royal road of the river became systematic appropriations of man. But a viewpoint high above, a repainted bench to rest, the quintas (estates) multiplying the quality of the wine are other responses to what Nature offers or denies: Nature is indifferent to man, indifferent to itself, as a concept. The tension between the critical spirit and the longing or the search for beauty are things of man. This is what these images are about.

From 6 December 2019 to 27 December 2020, the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) hosts, in its core pole (Historical Building of the Rectory of the University of Porto, near Cordoaria Garden), the exhibition Cultures and Geographies. Marking its centennial commemorations, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP) co-organizes with the MHNC-UP, and in collaboration with the Soares dos Reis National Museum, an exhibition that presents the collections that were part of the its museology and artistic holdings during the first phase of its existence (1919-1931). Originally used as teaching resources in three museum-rooms of the first FLUP, these collections, which, in 1941, moved to the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, are now in the care of MHNC-UP. Through a set of 250 extraordinary pieces of archaeology and ethnography, visitors will be invited to travel over time and explore ways of life, experiences and rituals of human communities on each of the five continents.

The Mercado da Ribeira consists of 10 stores, and was created after the renovation of the old market. Food products in its traditional form, tourist products and restaurants. Location: Cais da Ribeira (near the north pillar of Luiz I Bridge).

During the month of August, Cinema Trindade shows all the feature films by Kleber Mendonça Filho, one of the acclaimed Brazilian filmmakers today. Professional film critic and director of short films, the documentary follows the personal questions of those who are in the cultural industry, both as a filmmaker and as an observer of the art and audiovisual industry. The shooting started in 1998 and continued until 2007, in Brazil, USA and Europe, with filmmakers and critics from all over the world. It is a window into an art that is increasingly judged by market mechanisms and that struggles to remain human in both doing and observing.

From August 21st until September 6th, the Paper Costume Parade will be on display at the São João Baptista Fort, Foz do Douro. In order to ensure safety and social distancing measures, entry to the venue will be limited to 15 people at a time.

Let's start over, carefully. We are in no hurry, we miss you. And we have a public thanks to make. Let's start over with those who love us and those who have done us good. “Caring when everything is good throws the sadness away”, we hear in Castro. In early July, we will return to the performances that the pandemic has suspended. Together again! Let's start over, with joy and safety. "Live joyfully, Castro, live safely, throw your fears away." Castro (1598) by the poet António Ferreira, marks the first incursion of Nuno Cardoso into a canon piece of Portuguese theatre, Portugal’s first classical tragedy. He intends to inhabit this literary fiction, which itself offers a particular version of the historical drama / legend / myth of star-crossed lovers Pedro and Inês, making us “see with other eyes”, revealing to it the intrinsic modernity and density, veiled by the language’s poetry and by utterance. An immense stage-house-country, a kind of giant model of the spaces of action, a primordial and claustrophobic family cell, confront us with the tangible intimacy of characters that are in thrall to themselves and their intransigence. In Castro, like in Danton’s Death, the question of utopia (of love, as well as of revolution) is crucial. It is his dark reverse that is exposed here: love / desire and power as vice and chaos, as a prerogative, impunity and arrogance, as blindness that “tarnishes the brilliant rays of the ancient glory”. And how this tarnishing impairs the decision and replicates itself, tainting the family’s fabric with blood and revenge, in a peculiar dislocation of Castro’s focal point from Inês, and from the reason of State as fiction and morals, to Pedro, in his mirror-like relationship with his father, King Afonso IV. "What star was that so dark?"

The concept of Há Luz no Parque 2020, with light design by Paula Rainha and Joana Mendo, addresses lighting events of a celebratory, recreational and festive nature that lead to the (re)discovery of the light / nature relationship with Serralves Park as the background . In its 6th edition, Há Luz no Parque is an opportunity to discover the magic of Serralves Park from a dynamic night perspective. During the opening, the Textures & Lines concert by Drumming GP will take place - a percussion ensemble dedicated to contemporary music that has established itself as one of the most important collectives of the genre at an international level - together with the piano and electronic music duo made up by Joana Gama and Luís Fernandes, enhanced by Pedro Maia's visual textures. During the summer months, the Park opens at night, inviting visitors to experience different environmental and cultural challenges, such as pathways to different spaces, emphasized by a play of light which creates diverse scenarios, as well as guided tours to the Park that seek to show and highlight the convergence between the natural, artistic and architectural realm and, in symbiosis, enhance the existing remarkable natural heritage to discover the nocturnal life of the park.

A series of absolutely improbable, yet extraordinary renditions (featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus). Renowned director of photography and filmmaker, Arthur Jafa presents in this exhibition works that he has been making as a visual artist for the past two decades. In film, photography and sculpture, Jafa's oeuvre reveals the determinant role of race, gender and social class in mainstream popular culture and in the media in the United States and beyond. From Spike Lee and Stanley Kubrick to Beyoncé and Solange, Arthur Jafa has collaborated with many noteworthy filmmakers, artists and musicians. For this exhibition, Jafa invited photographer Ming Smith and visual artist Frida Orupabo, and incorporated materials from Missylanyus’ YouTube channel to create an audiovisual experience that is both a political reflection and a visionary perspective.

After a home experiment ends in disastrous results, a tech whiz, just 12 years old, finds out he has developed an unexpected telepathic connection with his dog. With no other option, the unlikely duo joins forces to overcome the tribulations they face in their new day to day. In order to comply with all the rules on physical distance, the venue will have a maximum capacity of 380 seats, distributed throughout the floor and the benches of the tennis court. Seats will be occupied on the first come, first served basis, with the doors opening one hour prior to each screening.