BROTÉRIA

Starting from Ana Vieira's Mesa-Paisagem, a program of encounters is proposed that constitute new readings of the piece and the artist's work. Four multidisciplinary encounters centered around a single piece, Mesa-paisagem by Ana Vieira. The exhibition of an installation from the Serralves Collection is revisited through the voices of the guests who activate new explorations in understanding this work and the artist.

Piece by P. João Sarmento SJ for the exhibition Filhos de todos...Filhos de quem?, by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa. On the day of the piece's inauguration, January 15th, there will be a conversation about the exhibition with Graça Morais, P. João Sarmento SJ, Helena Mantas, Francisco d'Orey Manoel, and moderated by Teresa Nicolau. The exhibition Filhos de todos… filhos de quem? Os expostos da roda de Lisboa, on display at the exhibition gallery of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, is curated by Helena Mantas and Francisco d'Orey Manoel. It will have an extension at the Brotéria Writers' House, which will be inaugurated on January 15th, at 6:30 PM, with the presence of the artist P. João Sarmento SJ. Afterwards, there will be a conversation about the exhibition with Graça Morais, P. João Sarmento SJ, Helena Mantas, Francisco d'Orey Manoel, and moderated by Teresa Nicolau. The SCML preserves nearly ninety thousand records of exposed children, organized into five documentary series, with dates between 1658 and 1939. This is the largest collection of documents of its kind worldwide. The exhibition is part of the nomination of these series to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, presented in conjunction with other national and international institutions.

brilha, enquanto vive [shining, while it lives] is not an exhibition about theatre. Even so, it can be read in light of the idea that everything resides in the relationship between the one who acts and the one who observes, within a shared space where something happens—a principle explored with particular depth by Peter Brook. Intrinsic to the realm of fiction, the logic of the "as if" helps us grasp the world and act within it. By loosening its ties to factual truth, theatre—and fiction, more broadly—finds in invention, imagination, lies, or fantasy multiple modes of revelation, both greater and lesser, outward and inward. At the Brotéria gallery, the space is inhabited by a voice that sketches imaginary principles, accompanied by provisional structures, fragments of stage sets, and traces of their protagonists. Across different scales, the origin of a possible dramaturgy is rehearsed—an unstable dramaturgy, perpetually in the making, which seems to belong everywhere and nowhere at once. João Timóteo and Xavier Ovídio explore the atmosphere of narration and impossible scenographies, drawing the visitor into a space suspended between listening, imagination, and presence. Theatre and film director Peter Brook (1925–2022) revolutionised theatrical thinking by proposing a shift from the idea of "spectacle" towards a radical simplicity of staging, stressing the potential of artistic performance—specifically the relationship between actor and audience—and recognising the inner force of human experience in the exploration of its central themes. The very word theatre derives from the Greek theaomai (θεάομαι): to look attentively, to perceive, to contemplate. It is not merely a matter of seeing in the everyday sense, but of undergoing an intense, immersive, inquisitive experience that seeks to uncover deeper meanings—a form of seeing that engages intelligence, sensibility, and imagination. And it is here that brilha, enquanto vive takes shape: in this human enchantment with fiction, in this near-need to tell and to listen to stories as a way of organising and expanding everyday experience, so that, rather than living as subjects of external circumstances, we might become the protagonists of our own lives. — Brotéria