iMAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture CentreBelém
Paradise, Today.
Portugal's official show from the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale: an interactive digital installation and atlas of images on how the Portuguese landscape is inhabited and imagined.
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Preview: written before the show opened
Walk past the screens and the landscape moves with you. The curators call the installation "a mirror game" that reacts to visitors' movements: sea, farmland and forest footage that never settles, filmed by video artist Nuno Cera in real Portuguese places and then reworked with AI into pieces such as Fungus Forest and Cables Dunes. Jorge Queijo's soundscape shifts with your presence too.
This was Portugal's pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, now in the MAC/CCB Architecture Centre. Next to the installation is an Atlas of about 700 photographs of the country, partly gathered through an open call that asked "Where is Paradise?". Despite the title, the subject is a coast squeezed by property speculation and tourism, and an interior that is emptying out.
Come for how Portugal's landscape is changing, told in moving images and photographs. Entry is on the €15 museum ticket. Free thematic visits (registration required) run on 7 and 21 November at 3pm, and on 29 November at 11am with Portuguese Sign Language.
Editor's pick
Portugal's official exhibition from the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale: an interactive digital installation and an atlas of images on how the Portuguese landscape is lived in and imagined.
Look for
The responsive screens
Look for landscape videos of Portuguese sea, fields and forest that change as you move in front of them, with a soundscape that reacts to you as well.
The Atlas of about 700 photographs
Images of Portuguese territory from around 30 photographers, including Duarte Belo and Paulo Catrica, grouped under themes such as leisure, return, cultivation and simulacrum.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Teenagers
With kids
Under-6s get in free and ages 7 to 18 get 20% off. The installation reacts to movement, so kids can change what's on the screens by walking around.
Also at MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Centre
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iLife is the Game – An immersive experience by Paulo Furtado
MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology
iPedro Cabrita Reis – “without sorrow of heart”
MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology
iExhibiting, Publishing: MAAT in Print (2016–2026)
MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Paradise, Today.Courtesy of MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Centre
- Life is the Game – An immersive experience by Paulo FurtadoMAAT, 2026
- Pedro Cabrita Reis – “without sorrow of heart”Photo: João Ferrand, courtesy of the artist
- Exhibiting, Publishing: MAAT in Print (2016–2026)Photograph: Fábio Cunha, courtesy of EDP Foundation
- MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture CentreHerbert wie, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museu Nacional de ArqueologiaJose Luis Filpo Cabana, CC BY 3.0
- Museu de MarinhaNan Palmero, CC BY 2.0
- Museu Nacional dos CochesBosc d'Anjou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and TechnologyStefan Bethke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0