Street Syntax
Roadkills: The Fast Lane to Extinction
From the world’s largest rodents to endangered anteaters, Brazil’s highways are erasing its wildlife in real time. The fast lane to progress has become the road to extinction.
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Shifting Grounds
The House That Wouldn’t Die: Chico Mendes Returns to Belém for COP30
As the world gathers in the Amazon to talk about the planet’s future, the home of a murdered rubber tapper rises again to remind everyone what the fight was always about.
System Hacks
Compost the Year: Inside Lisbon’s Ethical Assembly 2025
At the tail end of a chaotic 2025 — a year of climate backslides, algorithmic delusions, and resurgent fascisms — Lisbon wants to compost it all.
Diaspora Aesthetics
MIA: Lisbon’s Afro-Lusophone Future Is Being Written in the Present
Lisbon’s African Identity Month isn’t about looking back — it’s about remixing what was stolen. Fifty years after independence, a new generation of Afro-descendant artists is hacking Portugal’s archive in real time.
Random Urgencies
From Colony to Ministry: The Circle That Never Broke
Portugal’s health minister turns a tragedy into an accusation, proving that the colonial gaze survives — even in a white coat.
Coded Dreams
Deep Waters, Soft Circuits: Caparica’s Periphera Festival Plugs Art into the Tide
From the cloisters of the Convento dos Capuchos to the old prison of Trafaria, Festival Periphera turns Almada’s periphery into a portal — where art hacks technology, and community rewrites the future.
Street Syntax
“Um Inimigo do Povo”: When Lisbon’s Immigrants Step Onstage to Tell Their Own Story
Marco Martins turns a police raid in Mouraria into a multilingual act of resistance.
Diaspora Aesthetics
Made in Portugal: Designed Somewhere Else
From Braga’s mills to Copenhagen’s campaigns, Portugal powers global fashion yet remains invisible in it. Why has design stayed foreign?
Ancestral Echoes
Call Me João: Portugal's Strange Obsession With Naming Everyone the Same Thing
From Salazar's moral bureaucracy to the algorithmic age, Portugal's tiny name pool reveals a country still wrestling with its need for order — even in the chaos of identity.
Diaspora Aesthetics
Ai Weiwei's Next Move: Textiles as Weapons
The Chinese dissident brings his practice to Portugal's weaving capital, where every stitch is an act of resistance.
Street Syntax
From Drums to Diplomas: How Mangueira Is Turning a Samba School into a University
In Rio’s legendary favela of Mangueira, education and rhythm are colliding in the most radical way: the samba school that taught Brazil to dance is now teaching its people to dream differently.
Ancestral Echoes
Holy Brew, Dirty Politics: Guess Who Turned Ayahuasca Into a Fascist Sacrament?
Inside the União do Vegetal, where psychedelics are allegedly mixed with political indoctrination — proving that even enlightenment can be weaponized when religion and power share the same altar.