Social apathy and low levels of conventional citizen participation in Western societies are unavoidable problems today. In this context, the space for the emergence and consolidation of populist narratives has intensified, weakening our democracies. Citizen participation is currently plagued by a widespread sense of ineffectiveness and inconsequence. Fragile participatory acts affect our ability to DESIRE in the sense of imagining other worlds, other possible ways of relating, being, and producing. It is in the space of the vital pulse, which is desire, that this movement aims to support itself.

This 1st edition seeks to investigate devices that rescue the practice of DESEJAR as something essential to life, the reinvention of the arts, places, and ideas of the common. It is an organic and fluid national and international movement of arts and common places, part of Braga 25, which began in 2024 with a programme that includes a wide range of actions.

DESEJAR focuses on action and reflection around participatory, community-based, and sustainable artistic practices. In this edition, it aims to promote experimentation and knowledge centered on contemporary artistic and cultural creation and production; and to be based on an idea of art in common, sustainable, based on the sharing of resources in which human and more-than-human elements of an ecosystem establish integrated horizontal relationships.

 

The main principles are:

 

  • Artistic creation and experimentation – an approach that is centered on artistic practices that privilege the idea of experimentation and transdisciplinarity;
  • Participation and communities – development of participatory and community artistic practices based on different formats, levels, and intensities;
  • Horizontal relationship with nature – focus practices on symbiotic exchanges between human beings and ecosystems that go beyond them;
  • Exchange of knowledge – favor the involvement and intersection of local communities, development agents, thinkers, and professionals from different areas.

 

The project is being directed by:

  • Hugo Cruz (Artistic Direction and General Coordination)
  • Ana Bragança (Participation and Communities Director)
  • Simone Almeida (Executive Director)
  • Carolina Bravo (Production)

 

Monthly assemblies

As part of the project, monthly assemblies are organized to get to know the interests and wishes of the community. It is based on these assemblies that Desejar’s programming and creations will be decided.

 

Open Call

A call for proposals for projects that could be part of Desejar was open until 15 April, with an intensive public presentation between 10 and 14 June 2025. For full details, see the call regulations here.

The proposals received in this call were analysed by a jury invited for this purpose and the results are now known. Check them out here.

Desejar Academy: Wheels of Knowledge

The Desejar Academy is one of the axes of the Desejar project. It aims to generate exchanges of knowledge between and with different cultural, social, educational, and environmental agents in Braga, as well as people linked to areas and themes identified as relevant by these agents, who will be invited to take part in this Academy. Learn more here.