Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher and feminist. Along her philosophical path, this Italian-Australian woman passed through some of the fundamental stages of contemporary feminism, from Simone de Beauvoir, but then went down her own road. It is a road that is somewhat distant from known accounts of the theory of gender (such as those by Judith Butler) and the criticism of identity fixations. Her voice therefore sounds rather unconventional, as we can see in this interview.

In conversation with design critic and curator Frederico Duarte, Dutch graphic designer, researcher and professor Ruben Pater talks about his books and his conception of design as a practice of citizenship. This ‘Metropolitan’ is about bringing design closer to the subjects which help us better understand our place and our role in the city (or in the polis).

At the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris, curated by Helena de Freitas, a new exhibition places the work of Rui Chafes and Alberto Giacometti side by side and head to head. The magnetic force of attraction between the two bodies of work is clear to the viewer, in what brings them together and what keeps them apart. Nicolao Federico, writer, philosopher and curator, is familiar with the work of both Giacometti and Chafes and writes about the artists and the exhibition in which they come together.

On the other hand, after visiting Rui Chafe's exhibition in Paris, the poet, Manuel de Freitas, wrote the artist a letter. The starting point for the letter is a quotation from Alberto Giacometti that speaks of the imperfection, the virulence and the violence of poetry, painting, and sculpture. The poet talks to us about the darkness, the silence, the abyss and the night that are so palpable in this exhibition. And, as always happens with Manuel de Freitas, he talks to us about death.

In 2023, three exhibitions by Rui Chafes were held in Lisbon and Porto. With a career spanning four decades and a body of work that uses sculpture, drawing and text as its mediums, he is a key figure in contemporary art in Portugal and one of those who has achieved the greatest international projection. In this section, the artist, essayist and university professor João Sousa Cardoso talks about this oeuvre, revisiting the three exhibitions and leaving a future memory of them.

Italian writer Salvatore Settis is an art historian known for his public intervention and essays on the threats raised by political and economic management to cultural heritage. This is one of the topics approached in this interview, which also deals with the pressure that historical cities are subjected by tourists, as well as the role and responsibility of architects.

Bernardo Carvalho, a writer from Rio de Janeiro, ventures into the city of São Paulo and studies its less obvious side. Sometimes, he examines it through the strong lenses of a Lévi-Strauss; at others he sketches a psychological portrait of it on the basis of certain symptoms.

Not so long ago we rarely encountered the verb ‘scrutinise’. And not even a glimpse of it in literary texts. We cannot pronounce or write such a word without crashing against its materiality, without feeling the friction and sound of its consonants.

Jason Read, a Spinozian and professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine (USA), writes a blog (Unemployed Negativity) in which he analyses how work is depicted in films and books. In this article, the subject of analysis is the famous TV series Breaking Bad, in which the plot, focused on the character of the chemistry teacher-turned-drug lord Walter White, emphasises the role of work as a central issue.

A city is also made of the intentions, desires, gestures and acts that fill it with other movement and cover it with different rhythms. To observe it in its streets and obstacles, to unveil it where it opens and closes up, to act performatively on the city is, at the same time, to confirm and transform it, to traverse and probe it, to surpass and transcend it, to preserve and disturb it. It is to impart an instability to its stability, an ephemerality to its continuity, a departure to its permanence, a metamorphosis to its form. Performance art is a praxis: we transform ourselves by transforming, we become what we are and what we are not. This is what preoccupies Ana Pais, a theatre critic, professor and researcher, and the editor of Performance in the Public Sphere.

Taking on the labyrinth, the literary critic and art history researcher, João Oliveira Duarte, writes on the vast volume that brings together all the critical work of Joaquim Manuel Magalhães, to which the poet gave a simple descriptive title Poesia Portuguesa Contemporânea [Contemporary Portuguese Poetry].