Program of Concerts, Conferences, Exhibitions and Performances
The Foreigner
FEB 20 - MAY 29, 2025
Free admission

Curated by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Daniel Ribas e Nuno Crespo.

Following on from the series of talks with artists, thinkers, activists and performers, such as Pisar suavemente sobre a terra and Não foi cabral: revendos silêncios e omissões, in 2025 School of Arts will organize a programme on “the question of the stranger”. The month of February marks the start of the annual program of conferences, concerts, exhibitions and performances, this year entitled “The Stranger”.

With the participation of:
· Aline Motta
· Arianna Casellas y Kauê
· Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida
· Fred Moten
· Frederico Pereira
· Geovani Martins
· João Grilo
· Marco Martins e Beatriz Batarda
· Miguel Gomes
· Mónica de Miranda
· Rodrigo Areias com Samuel Coelho
· Vasco Araújo

Curated by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Daniel Ribas and Nuno Crespo, we will ask ourselves, following Derrida in his writings on hospitality, if “the question of the foreigner” is not, in fact, “a question of the foreigner”, that is, a question “coming from abroad, from outside”. This suggestion invites us to confront the recalcitrant nature of the arrival of the foreigner, of the stranger, the way it unsettles us and what it brings us. The question of the foreigner is thus conceived as a summons posed by the one who arrives, a summons that begins with the conditions of that arrival.

This starting point will guide our international series of conferences on how art and thought respond to this pressing summons in an attempt to artistically circumscribe the concept of hospitality and its historical and contemporary detractors.

The recent history of the European continent and the migratory movements to Europe make this issue central today. If the arrival of the foreigner challenges us, hospitality, or the lack of it, is possibly a projection of our fears.

But is hospitality just a political and economic reality? What is its spiritual and individual dimension? What does contemporary art and thought teach us about the way we welcome others, about walls or closed doors and about approaching the stranger and strangeness?

Nuno Crespo, 2025