The mission of MAC/CCB is to

• promote the enjoyment, understanding, and study of the works and collections housed here, engaging its audiences in a diverse and participatory manner;
• stimulate artistic creation and promote its understanding, taking into account its diversity and valuing the critical capacity of art;
• facilitate dialogue amongst visual arts, architecture, and performing arts, embracing a multitude of practices that shape contemporaneity.

Vision

In simple terms, MAC/CCB’s course of action is guided by the following principles:

• the view that the contemporary, in an eminently interdisciplinary sense, is what acts in the present, which also implies a critical examination of the past to better understand current art in all its diversity;
• the perspective that MAC/CCB has the necessary conditions to facilitate dialogue between various artistic practices, architecture, and the realm of the performative, materialising the common ground amongst cultural fields that the Centro Cultural de Belém has chosen as its vocation;
• the empowerment of MAC/CCB as a museum in which the dialogue between different artistic typologies is based on the diversity of contemporary art practices, not only providing historical perspectives but also charting the visions of today’s artists;
• the conviction that MAC/CCB should encourage artistic creation by closely engaging with artists in an open, forward-looking manner;
• the understanding that the museum is a place of enjoyment but also of learning and sharing, thus developing an extensive mediation and education programme dedicated to various communities and age groups.