Memories, Silences, And Disputes In The Public Space Of Two Iberian Cities

• November 21 at 3:30pm

Roundtable discussion with:
Victor Barros
Historian at the Institute of Contemporary History, NOVA University of Lisbon (IHC-NOVA FCSH/IN2PAST)

Elsa Peralta
Anthropologist, professor, and researcher at the Institute of Art History, NOVA University of Lisbon (IHA-NOVA FCSH/IN2PAST)

Ricardo Agarez
Architect, principal researcher at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon

Miguel Anxo Rodriguez
Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela

Camila Opazo Sepúlveda
PhD in Society and Culture from the University of Barcelona, archaeologist, and museologist

Moderated by Mariana Pinto dos Santos
Art historian and professor (IHA-NOVA FCSH/IN2PAST)

Free admission with invitation. Subject to available seating.
MAC/CCB auditorium

The roundtable will be held in Portuguese, with no translation.

• November 22 at 10:30am
(registration required)

A guided tour to the urban and monumental setting of Praça do Império with anthropologist Elsa Peralta, historian Pedro Cardim, and Portuguese-Angolan artist Márcio Carvalho, creator of Memórias para 14 Bustos (2026). The work proposes the creation of an alternative site of memory in the Belém Tropical Botanical Garden—one that can recall, reinterpret, and recontextualise past events such as the human zoo established for the Portuguese World Exhibition (1940), while challenging Belém’s imperial urban context. (Memórias para 14 Bustos was included in the exhibition Olhares Críticos no Arquivo Colonial – Sombras e Memórias, at MUHNAC, April–August 2026, curated by Márcio Carvalho, Nuno Silas, and Sophie Kotanyi.)

We would like to thank MUHNAC and the Tropical Botanical Garden for authorising this tour. The tour will be conducted in English, with no translation.

Limited to 25 participants.
Free admission, subject to prior registration by completing the form available here by 17 November 2026.

Víctor Barros
Historian with a PhD in Contemporary History from the University of Coimbra, where his doctoral thesis examined commemorations, the public uses of history, and the memory of empire in the colonies during the Estado Novo dictatorship. He is currently a researcher at NOVA FCSH’s Institute of Contemporary History.

Elsa Peralta
Assistant Professor of Museology and Heritage Studies in the Department of Art History at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University of Lisbon, and an integrated researcher at the Institute of Art History. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and has developed an interdisciplinary career at the intersection of memory studies, heritage, critical museology, colonial and postcolonial studies, and urban studies. Her work focuses particularly on the materialities of the imperial past in public space and on contemporary policies and practices of representing and mediating (post)colonial memory.

Ricardo Agarez
Trained as an architect, he studies the history and theory of the processes through which the built environment is produced. He is principal researcher at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon and coordinator of Arquitectura Aqui – Comunidade, Proximidade, Acção: Equipamento de Utilização Colectiva em Portugal e Espanha 1939–1985.

Miguel Anxo Rodriguez
Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He specialises in contemporary art and has conducted research into the relationships between art and ideology, contemporary sculpture, cultural policies, and independent collectives and spaces. He is the coordinating researcher of the project PERMORIA –Performativity of the Monument: Social Perception and Interventions (Spain’s National Research Plan).

Camila Opazo Sepúlveda
Holds a PhD in Society and Culture from the University of Barcelona. She is an interdisciplinary researcher specialising in colonial memory, heritage, museums, and decolonisation processes. Her research career has developed across Chile and Spain, addressing the transformation of colonial narratives, public history, and colonial heritage from critical, decolonial, and intercultural perspectives. She is a researcher on the project PERMORIA – Performativity of the Monument: Social Perception and Interventions (Spain’s National Research Plan).

Pedro Cardim
Historian, university professor, and researcher at the Centre for the Humanities, NOVA FCSH. His work focuses on the political and institutional history of the Iberian Peninsula in the early modern period and on forms of governance within its empires across the Atlantic world. He has also carried out extensive research into the memory and historiography of the Portuguese empire, seeking to understand both academic perspectives on the imperial past and their implications for public space.

Márcio Carvalho
Visual artist. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from ESAD (Caldas da Rainha), a master’s degree in Performing Arts from UDK (Berlin), and a PhD from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon. He has participated in artistic events and projects across five continents, including the RAVY Biennale (Yaoundé), the Curitiba Biennial, the National Arts Festival (Johannesburg), the Thessaloniki Biennale, the Gemäldegalerie (Berlin), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon), MUCEM (Marseille), and the Museum of Africa (Tervuren).

Mariana Pinto dos Santos
Art historian and independent curator. She is deputy director of the Institute of Art History and a professor in the Department of Art History at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA FCSH. She is a researcher on the project PERMORIA – Performativity of the Monument: Social Perception and Interventions (Spain’s National Research Plan). Her work focuses on modernity and modernisms, the circulation of the avant-garde, art historiography and theory, and the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the 20th century, drawing on critical and transdisciplinary approaches to art history. She coordinates the Almada Negreiros — Sarah Affonso Study and Documentation Centre at NOVA FCSH.