Ancestral Echoes
Complexo Brasil at Gulbenkian: Where Beauty Refuses to Hide the Fire Beneath
A blockbuster show that refuses to let Portugal keep pretending Brazil is just colour, rhythm and saudade.
Ancestral Echoes
Where the past whispers futures.
Ancestral Echoes
When Culture Becomes Contraband: Orixás Under Fire
When a drawing sparks a police raid and a woman is stabbed for practicing her faith, it’s clear: intolerance isn’t rising quietly — it’s arriving armed.
Ancestral Echoes
The Town That Speaks Four Languages: A Hidden Republic of Resistance
In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, words aren’t decoration — they’re defiance.
Ancestral Echoes
Before the Crown, the Headdress: Reframing Brazil's Origin Story
A recent documentary and a new generation of Indigenous leaders are dismantling Brazil’s colonial creation myth — proving that history didn’t begin in 1500, and it certainly didn’t begin with a crown.
Ancestral Echoes
The Heat Was Never the Problem ...
Colonial theories of "tropical inferiority" still haunt Brazil — now Black artists are burning them down.
Ancestral Echoes
Postcards from the Plantation: Brazil’s Tropical Dream Rebranded
From Freyre’s erotic myths to Instagram’s filtered favelas, Brazil keeps remixing colonial desire into a pop aesthetic called “diversity.”
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.
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.
Ancestral Echoes
From Chains to Chants: The Black and Red Streets of Laranjeiras
The Festa dos Lambe-Sujos e Caboclinhos isn’t about costumes — it’s about memory, rebellion, and the unfinished story of liberation.
Ancestral Echoes
The greatest massacre in Rio de Janeiro began 525 years ago. And it never ended.
Indigenous activist and writer Yakuy Tupinambá exposes how state violence against Black and Indigenous peoples continues the unfinished project of colonization.
Ancestral Echoes
Forget Greta: These River Warriors Are Taking Climate Activism to Another Level
The Yaku Mama flotilla is bringing the fight for climate justice straight to the doorstep of next year's UN summit — by boat.
Ancestral Echoes
The Exotic Alibi: How Europe Still Uses Brazil to Forget Itself
A brief history of European thinkers finding salvation in Brazil — and erasing Brazilians in the process.