New edition of Transeuropa Festival: 20-25 April in Porto

TRANSEUROPA Festival 2022 edition, Decolonialize! Decarbonize! Democratize!, takes place in Porto from the 21th to the 25th of April.

For over fifteen years now, European Alternatives has curated the TRANSEUROPA Festival, a transnational artistic and political space that brings together some of the leading actors in cultural and social change from across the world. TRANSEUROPA Festival 2022 edition, Decolonialize! Decarbonize! Democratize!, takes place in Porto from the 21th to the 25th of April.

After living through a global pandemic, we are now shaken by an intensification of war. We urgently need to consolidate transnational networks to promote human rights and democracy and to denounce imperialism and authoritarianism. In a world where many face discrimination and racism on a daily basis we need to decolonize the spaces and contexts in which we operate and let speak those who are normally excluded from mainstream discourses.

By ‘decarbonising our future’, we mean an urgent shift from an extractivist economic model to planetary custodianship. In a moment in which the world is looking at Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels, natural gas, and oil, we need to mobilize our imaginations to create alternative ways of life. Democracy has to be continuously defended and advanced, it is therefore the second pillar of this Festival. A renewed democracy must reach across borders and enable civic agency for global problems. Transnational democracy is to be built through practices of transfeminism, empowerment of the most marginalized, by institutional and cultural invention.

Transnational democracy is to be built through practices of transfeminism, empowerment of the most marginalized, by institutional and cultural invention.

The third pillar of this Festival edition is based on the premise that we should never take democracy for granted. Democratic and collectively organised spaces are an extension of civil society. We must preserve such spaces and create new ones, as these can serve as laboratories of social and political change, collective sites where new narratives are created.

Porto is an ideal location to take forward these concepts and rethink a new physical and conceptual space. Together with local actors, we propose a programme that relates to the city and its communities, that creates a collective space to imagine new narratives and enact political agency. Let’s imagine and create together, let’s Decolonize, Decarbonise and Democratize our lives!

The Festival programme consists of public conferences, exhibitions, open meetings and music and involves different spaces of the city, including the Porto University, the Botanical Garden, the Cooperativa Árvore and many others. Confirmed speakers and artists include Álvaro de Vasconcelos, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Enikő Vincze, Gonçalo Canto Moniz, Isabel Brison and Moon Ribas, among others.

We invite you to save the dates of the next edition of TRANSEUROPA from April 2oth – 25th, to check the programme, and to plan your trip to participate in our Festival.