This fair started spontaneously at Praça da Batalha where handmade products (costume jewellery, wallets, among others) were sold. In the 90's the Porto City Hall regulated this activity, though the creation of Batalha Handcraft Fair.

Station 1 reveals the history of absence, rather than the history of presence. Fragments and further fragments are used to narrate moments that indicate the existence of the current and previous epochs. Materials from different periods coexist with audiovisual devices and different types of image, to show us how PortuCale - the city that gave Portugal its name - became Porto.

METAMORFOSES focuses on the profusion and the process of integration of the imaginary and the vegetal, mineral and animal themes in a romantic domestic space, bringing to the halls of the house of Quinta da Macieirinha several pieces, some previously exhibited in the former Romantic Museum and other spaces of Museu da Cidade, others never exhibited, showing the unquestionable quality and diversity of the municipal collections. This exhibition also marks the beginning of the evocation of the centenary of the death of Porto artist, Aurélia de Souza, a key moment of the 2022/2023 programme. The celebrated self-portrait of the artist as “Santo António” (Saint Anthony), made around 1902, will be part of the new collection that brings together paintings, furniture, tapestries and textiles, ceramics, crockery and silverware, as well as other surprising sections of the collection, such as sets of fans, cut-out papers and malacology.

This exhibition, the artist's first solo show in Portugal, is centred around her most recent film – “Eu sou uma arara” [I am a macaw] (2022) – which will have its first ever premiere in Serralves. Made in collaboration with filmmaker Mariana Lacerda, this medium-length film is a critical reflection on the impact of deforestation in the Amazon upon its indigenous peoples at a time of political and social tension. This work is also the result of a long period of research and a series of actions in São Paulo where dozens of figures inspired by Brazilian fauna and flora were paraded through the city's streets, like a dense and powerful forest. Heir to the historical legacy of the post-war avant-garde movements, from neo-concrete to tropicália, Rivane Neuenschwander (b. 1967) is one of the most renowned names in Brazilian contemporary art. In her work, the artist combines different media and mediums to build a unique visual repertoire that explores narratives on a wide range of themes, including language and time, popular culture and literature, psychoanalysis and art, nature and society, politics and philosophy, fear and desire. One of her most iconic works, “Eu desejo o seu desejo” [I wish your wish] (2003), a collection of wishes reminiscent of the wish ribbons/bracelets of Senhor do Bonfim, will be placed in the Chapel of Serralves Villa.

Cindy Sherman: Metamorphosis presents a series of works that span the artist's career from her earliest work to her most recent works. The exhibition was organized in dialogue with the artist and in partnership with The Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles, an institution that has collected in depth Cindy Sherman's work for over thirty years. Mainly known for photographs in which she portrays herself as her own model, embodying the role of female media-influenced stereotypes in a wide range of personas and environments, Cindy Sherman shoots alone in her studio, serving as artistic director, photographer, makeup artist, hairdresser and subject. The portrait practice she began decades ago is responsible for some of the most striking and influential images in contemporary art. For this ambitious presentation in Serralves, the museum's galleries will undergo a radical transformation, creating a theatrical set to host the storyboard that the artist's photographs make up. The exhibition will also include new work, especially created for the Serralves Museum: a large photographic mural, which will give the exhibition an additional uniqueness. Generally, the artist does not give titles to her works, trying to avoid preconceived interpretations or pre-interpretations that could influence the viewer, preferring to leave the construction of the stories to the discretion of each person. The images are, however, grouped in series and numbered and explore various themes and techniques, thus reinforcing the differentiation and classification: Untitled Film Still (1983-1984), Fashion (1983-84), Bus Rider (1976-2000), The Fairy Tales (1985), The Disasters (1986-89), The Historical Portraits (1988-90) , Sex Pictures (1992), Horror and Surrealistic Pictures (1994), Masks (1995), Broken Dolls (1999), The Hollywood/Hampton Ladies Portraits (2000), The Clowns (2003-05), Society (2008). In the exhibition in Serralves, these series are presented with no chronological order, but rather building a narrative. In Sherman's works, individual compositions and narratives refer to a complete and complex repertoire of female identities: but while the early works are full of visible emotions, in the later photographs the emotions are gradually excluded. The works are not self-portraits, but representations perfected by the distance from the camera or lens that captures them or, as Rosalind Krauss said, they are “a copy without actually having an original”. In the late 1980s, Sherman felt the need to suppress her presence and created unreal and grotesque images, accident scenes, made up of supernatural and terrifying characters who embodied irrational fears and nightmares and created macabre and repulsive settings. Gradually, the artist's body is replaced by fake breasts, human excrescences, bodily fluids, sexual debris, medical prostheses, which later gave rise to Sex Pictures (1992), one of her most daring series, in which Sherman arranges mannequins into pseudo-pornographic tableaux, deliberately un-erotic that challenge the porn industry standards. The artist's return to the centre of the image took place around 2000 with the series Head Shots, where she features a series of studio portraits, or the disturbing series Clowns (2003-05) and, later, images of elderly women. If the fake or artificial body parts force the viewer to confront the staged aspect of the work, the tragic and vulgar appearance of the characters compels him to feel a certain empathy and respect for them. On the other hand, there is an evident change in the positioning of the camera, in the alteration of the sets, in the saturation and overlapping of props and extraneous elements in the composition, as well as the size of the print. Later, in the Society series (2008), Sherman continues her exploration into distorted ideals of beauty, self-image and aging in a society obsessed with youth and status through characters set in sumptuous backgrounds and presenting these photographs in ornate frames. Sherman goes from analogue to digital and, like her characters, she experiments with various possibilities: truly natural settings in her first images, film techniques such as “rear projection”, studio photography (the place where she has greater control over the image construction), the cyclorama and finally construction images on digital backgrounds. Although her work is generally classified by critics and theorists as being associated with feminism, violence and voyeurism and focusing on representation, the artist herself tends to avoid this theoretical instrumentalization and such associations. When building a character, Sherman does not have a specific person in mind but a genre, and the complexity of the narrative is shaped in the specificity of the relationship between the setting and the character.

Yuri Dojc, a photographer renowned for his portraits of Jewish Holocaust survivors, and Katya Krausova, a veteran British filmmaker who, in 1997, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (with "Kolya") and is now also the exhibition's curator, show the memories of the inhabitants of Bardejov, a small Slovak seaside town. The exhibition and the accompanying documentary began its journey in 2009 and have already travelled to three continents, in the most diverse venues: from the Cambridge Manuscript Library to the United Nations building in New York, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, followed by Berlin and Moscow. Currently, several pictures from the exhibition are already part of the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington (USA).

The title of the exhibition marking the centenary of Agustina Bessa-Luís (1922–2019) evokes the name of a film by the director with whom the writer maintained a regular and fruitful collaboration: “Um Filme Falado” [A Talking Picture] (2003) by Manoel de Oliveira. The starting point of the exhibition were the books “Aforismos” (1988), “Contemplação Carinhosa da Angústia” (2000), “Dicionário Imperfeito” (book published in 2008 that brings together excerpts from texts arranged in alphabetical order) and “Ensaios e Artigos” (1951–2007) (2017), which cover a wide range of subjects, themes and personalities. While reading these volumes – which both in terms of form and content can be understood as true revelations of Agustina's world – some of the writer's key ideas were identified. These themes are the entries for this “dictionary-exhibition”, each creating a dialogue with works from the Serralves Collection, by Portuguese and foreign artists, some of whom were her contemporaries. The aim is to create unexpected synapses, reverberations, between selected pieces and words, expanding their respective meanings and possible interpretations. The exhibition, which is to be read as much as to be seen, is presented as a three-dimensional book.

The craft market is made up of around 20 wooden huts, which sell books, decorative items, clothing and gastronomy. Live music, various workshops and entertainment will also be available throughout the month. The market, decorated with bright lights, provides a wonderful Christmas atmosphere that is well worth a visit.

This is a Relaxed Session! From December 8th to January 8th, the Coliseu Porto Ageas Christmas Circus [Circo de Natal] reinvents itself again with the best artists and live music, to show, before our eyes, the most fantastic circus arts. Our more playful side is joined by the musical direction of composer Ramón Galarza, the artistic direction of clown Rui Paixão, the stage magic direction of magician Mário Daniel and a cast of talented circus performers from various parts of the world. On a set that reminds us of a video game or a cyberpunk desert, and which could be a children's version of “Mad Max”, we follow the story of a circus company fleeing the city, after several failed shows. Lost in the middle of the desert, they find a group of “unlucky” people who live isolated there, as they believe it is the only way to make their art and beliefs exist. The company being aimless and the “unlucky” people curious, they decide to celebrate together with music, dance, magic, fire, juggling, clown, hair hanging, rolla bolla, pins, diabolo, cyr wheel and even a globe of death. This is how the Circus Party at the Coliseu will be! Created for all ages, Circo de Natal 2022 talks, in a fun and uncompromising way, about the search for a place of belonging. A place of freedom where, regardless of our differences, what we are or what we want to be, we gain a voice and a community. It is a hymn to art, free artistic expression and culture as an essential asset for building that place. In the end, does the company decide to stay in the desert or continue looking for the way to the city? We reveal this and much more from December 8th to January 8th, with shows at various times. Come and discover an uninterrupted tradition since 1941, which is increasingly renewed.

With a reflective and singular career, Vera Mota (Porto, 1982) has been developing her work around the politics of the body, promoting and weighting its participation as a generative methodology and axis for conceptual formulations. Resorting mainly to sculpture, drawing and performance, and thus taking advantage of the breadth and permeability that these disciplines offer, her artistic practice involves a strong material component. In the work of Vera Mota, performance emerges as a means of production, composition or even staging, in a process where the body as the almost always indispensable agent, imprinting its gestures and circulations. The artist pays special attention to the economy of presence, effort and action, the artist proposes successive exercises of repositioning of the body, sometimes subjecting it to processes of almost complete erosion of its characteristics. Assuming a sculptural animism and claiming other perspectives of the body and materiality, Vera Mota reassesses modes of representation, proposing processes and strategies of disqualification, transfer or transfiguration of forms, status or functions, among bodies or the parts that compose them. DISEMBODIED is the artist's first exhibition in a museum - as if from the hands to the head - proposes a permanent and tense dialogue between drawing and sculpture, in which the spectators find themselves involved.

“Who tells a tale adds a tail’” is a proverb used to indicate that a story is added to with each telling, i.e., people add their own details to their account of the very same event or fact. “Story telling” is one of the expressions that best define the oeuvre of artist Paula Rego (Lisbon, 1935 – London, 2022); “adding tails”, which all readers and viewers do, is the most accurate expression that define the visitors of exhibitions. Paula Rego was one of the artists who obtained the most recognition in the country where she was born and raised (Portugal) as well as in England, where she studied and lived until her death, and worldwide. The readings of her work underlined above all the relationship between her painting, drawings and prints with folk and traditional tales (many of them Portuguese in origin), with literature (including for children) and with her autobiography (especially her childhood), as well as on her contribution to a constant questioning and redefinition of women’s role in society. Held in the same year when Paula Rego has passed away, this exhibition, showcases a remarkable amount of her works in the Serralves Collection – including the impressive polyptych Possessão [Possession] (2004) – is an opportunity to once again admire her work.

The immersive multimedia show “Misterioso Egito” [Mysterious Egypt] is a creative adaptation of more than 3,000 years of history, which will dazzle the viewer with its visual effects and music, transforming this space into a living testimony of this fascinating civilization. In this thirty-minute journey, accompanied by Ricardo Carriço’s voice, we explore some of the most symbolic moments and elements with iconic “stops”. We discover the treasure of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, who celebrates 100 years, we unravel the enigma behind the famous Rosetta Stone (1799), we meet great pharaohs like Ramses II - The Great, we see the great Pyramids, among many other architectural and pictorial elements that are part of this imagination. Get ready for… A journey back in time to Egyptian civilisation, where you are invited to explore some of the most symbolic moments and elements of Egyptian culture.

This Christmas, give Portuguese crafts as gifts. The “Artes e Ofícios” fair, returns to Avenida Dom Afonso Henriques, close to São Bento Station. In this Christmas edition, the market organised by Santa Clara Associação will be open from 1 to 23 December, with various Portuguese handicraft products and objects. Ceramics, wool, linen, wood, leather, stone and iron objects, traditional toys and games, handmade soaps, cloth dolls and homemade liqueurs are some of the items that make good Christmas gifts.

Next Thursday, December 15th, the Palácio da Bolsa will host another ModaPortugal. The initiative brings together up-and-coming fashion designers with experienced companies of the industry. The highlight of the day goes to the eighth edition of the European Young Designers Contest, a competition that brings together 18 promising stylists (future clients of the national clothing and ready-to-wear industry) from renowned schools. From Aalto University, in Finland, arrive Ellen Rajala, Jarno Kettunen and Taneli Ukura. From the French Institute of Fashion come Mouyakabi Diomandé, Paul Billot and Zoé Gerolymos. The Italian Polimoda brings Federico Di Nisio, Fenqjin Yue and Samuel Lewis. The London College of Fashion sends Benjamin Ethan, Dayoung Jang and Leo Prothmann, while the Geneva University of Art and Design presents Agapornis, Niels Raonison and Norman Mabire-Larguier. Representing Portugal, Ivan Hunga Garcia, from the Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Rita Miguel Costa, from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, and Andreia Reimão, from Modatex Porto. After a programme of visits to Portuguese factories – such as Adalberto, Calvelex, Petratex, Riopele, Centro Tecnológico da Indústria de Vestuário, CITEVE and the Valérius Recycling Center – the young designers will show their work before an international jury, made up of experts from the countries represented. The competition will have a final fashion show, accompanied by a dinner and the awarding of prizes to the winners of each country. The Prémios de Excelência Empresarial 2022 [award] will also be given at the ceremony to a number of companies that have stood out in the development of clothing, ready-to-wear and fashion in Portugal, divided into the categories of “E-commerce”, “Exportação”, “Indústria 4.0”, “Investimento”, “Sustentabilidade” and “Volume de Negócios”.

Warhol, People and Things: 1972-2022, a collection of 68 photographs, from the 1970s and 1980s, donated to the Mishkin Gallery by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and exhibited, for the first time, in Portugal and Europe. The exhibition reveals "the work of Andy Warhol and his contributions to the development of experimental art, the media and critical art discourse, in conversation with contemporary artists, while also exposing the pioneering pop artist to a new generation in Porto". In addition to Warhol's photographs, contemporary works of art will be exhibited, several of which were commissioned for the exhibition. Among the works on display are "Scenes from the Life Of Andy Warhol" (1982), by director Jonas Mekas, John Miller’s "Middle of the Day" photographs, three films by Jeff Preiss, including his most recent "Welcome to Jordan", 2022, and recent paintings by Anna Ostoya. Works by Portuguese artists Sara Graça and Pedro Magalhães were also commissioned, and pieces from Casa São Roque will also be included, such as photographs by Augusto Alves da Silva and Robert Mapplethorpe. The exhibition program also includes lectures on photography and the relationship between Warhol and Jonas Mekas.

Christmas and book fairs go hand in hand. Accordingly, we have organised, alongside our Christmas rerun of “Blindness”, a theatre book fair. Books are an extension of our stage. They are chapters of the life and work of this National Theatre. We have titles from our back catalog available, which can be purchased with discounts of up to 80%. A back catalog is not a bag of leftovers. Rather, it's a tribute to what's left. A collection of precious items that the voracity for the “new” has removed from circulation. It has books by remarkable authors – Georg Büchner, Peter Handke, Anton Tchékhov, Joe Orton, William Shakespeare, Brian Friel, Samuel Beckett – assisted by exceptional translators – João Barrento, António Pescada, Luísa Costa Gomes, Daniel Jonas, Paulo Eduardo Carvalho. Santa Claus goes to the theatre. Books are great presents, especially at these prices.

Cooperativa Árvore is once again holding the now traditional Natal na Árvore. On display will be available pieces of sculpture, painting, graphic work, ceramics, design and designer jewellery, art books, catalogues, pieces of furniture, etc. Visit Natal na Árvore and buy gifts among the works on display. Yet another initiative by one of the most iconic cultural institutions in the city of Porto, which in 2023celebrates 60 years.

Spiritus –The best way to travel is to feel is an innovative multimedia show that goes beyond the walls of the Church of Clérigos, in Porto. This immersive experience explores music, light, energy and colour, creating an atmosphere of visual poetry, synchronicity and lightness that fills the entire architecture of the Church of Clérigos. Created by OCUBO and freely inspired by the poem “Afinal, a melhor maneira de viajar é sentir” by Álvaro de Campos, Spiritus awakens the imaginary, spirituality and mindfulness in each spectator.

Who are the unknowns Raquel André has been filing for nearly a decade, in images, texts and objects in the context of the Coleção de Pessoas [People Collection] project? How do these people perceive the direct artistic relation she established with them? What do they feel through an encounter experience? Who are these participating witnesses? Who are these spectators? Raquel André’s fourth collection is a performance, a museum, a long talk between her and the witnesses and interlocutors who let themselves be touched by her work. In 2020 the Coleção de Espectador_s started with a participatory website www.collectionofspectators.com, in 2021 it premiered with a group of spectators on stage. — Raquel André

“Serralves em Luz” is back for a second edition and transforms the entire Serralves Park into an impressive light exhibition, providing the night-time enjoyment of this magnificent space through a surprising experience. After the success of the first edition, mentioned in the British newspaper The Times as one of the 10 best exhibitions to visit in all of Europe, “Serralves em Luz” is back, with the creative direction of Nuno Maya and organised in conjunction with the Serralves team and with light designs by the OLAB Collective, Sophie Guyot, Tamar Frank and Tilen Sepič. Along a 3 km route, twenty-five light installations, using multiple sources, low energy consumption technologies and even plants recovered in the Park itself, provide a magical sensory experience, in an immersive environment that provides new perspectives of this remarkable space and beckons to discover its natural and architectural heritage. Nuno Maya's light designs, created specifically for this exhibition, combine various forms of light with different locations in the Park, awakening in the spectator different visual sensations and emotions, while international interventions focus on luminous and interactive sculptural pieces that enable, for the for the first time, an active role of the audience that can thus transform, through light, the natural landscapes of the spaces. From the workshop for children, designed by the exhibition’s creative director and held with the collaboration of the Serralves Environment Education Service, was also born a video mapping projection on the facade of Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, created by 2nd year students of Escola Básica da Pasteleira do Porto. In parallel with this great open-air and night-time exhibition, there will be a programme of guided tours and photography workshops, which complements and enhances the experience of the different dimensions present: light, nature, art and architecture. Visit “Serralves em Luz” and enjoy a truly luminous evening.

Botanical Garden of Porto will host an immersive night show, designed with the whole family in mind, where there will be plenty of light sculptures, holograms and visual effects with lights and lasers that will highlight some of the garden’s botanical species. The show is a “sensory and interactive journey” that will feature some of the most fascinating characters from the world of Alice in Wonderland, such as the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, The Caterpillar and the Queen of Hearts, but also with well-known passages from Lewis Carroll's two books, the aforementioned and Alice Through the Looking-Glass. some sound environments and multimedia and interactive installations in mind, that is, there will be an “augmented reality app that will enable to add magic to one of the settings, using a smartphone, and a projection mapping on the south façade of the Galeria da Biodiversidade. This year there is something new. The ticket for the immersive exhibition gives direct access to Galeria da Biodiversidade – Centro Ciência Viva. Talk to us through livechat and find out everything!

The long-awaited return of Carlos Araújo and Luis Ruvina to Porto’s stages takes place at Casa da Música, where the Hammond Project duo presents “Entre Nós - Concerto no Natal”, with special guests: Paulo de Carvalho, Rui David, Manuel Santiesteban and Coro de Câmara de Barcelo. From original songs to adaptations of the Portuguese songbook preformed in a truly unique way, the evening will be devoted to the Portuguese-speaking diaspora, flamenco, gospel, jazz and pop, in the incomparable sound of the Hammond B3.