Autumn 2025 exhibition program

On November 15, Galeria Municipal do Porto (GMP) opened three exhibitions: a mid-career survey by Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela; a group show curated by Kiluanji Kia Henda and Margarida Waco with works by Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lilianne Kiame, Flávio Cardoso and Raul Jorge Gourgel; and a project dedicated to the legacy of Elvira Leite.

Curated by João Laia, State of Spirit is the most extensive presentation to date of Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela’s work. Collaborating for more than fifteen years, the duo developed a visual vocabulary grounded in film and video—analogue and digital—while expanding their practice through photography, drawing and sculpture. The exhibition gathers a significant selection of works, including several new pieces, together creating an immersive dreamlike environment. State of Spirit maps labour, ritual, oral tradition and everyday forms of shared knowledge, documenting community as a porous encounter between culture and nature.

Recursions: a cartography of unfinished grounds proposes a multivocal reading of modernity’s material and symbolic residues. Curated by Kiluanji Kia Henda and Margarida Waco, the exhibition establishes a dialogue between Kia Henda’s work and three other Angolan artists: Lilianne Kiame, Flávio Cardoso and Raul Jorge Gourgel. Mobilising the notion of recursion as a cyclical return that connects temporal layers, the project addresses the promises, contradictions and ruins that continue to shape postcolonial imaginaries. Rooted in Angolan landscapes and territorial histories, the works articulate memory and speculative processes through photography, painting, sculpture, video and performance. Recursions: a cartography of unfinished grounds projects Angola as a living, expanding archive, where ongoing negotiations around identity, power and potentiality take place.

Elvira Leite: Learning to teach, teaching to learn, curated by Matilde Seabra, showcases the unique universe of Elvira Leite—an artist and pioneering figure for art education in Portugal. The exhibition brings together a selection of early paintings alongside recent and previously unseen work, tracing the development of a practice vibrating between abstraction and figuration. The project also invites a playful engagement with the geometries, forms and didactic strategies of Leite’s activity books, including archival materials such as letters, photographs and personal objects. Reflecting Leite’s imaginary, the exhibition articulates an expanded notion of art and learning as reciprocal, open-ended processes.

Free access. State of Spirit will be on view until February 15, 2026; Recursions: a cartography of unfinished grounds and Elvira Leite: Learning to teach, teaching to learn will be on view until February 22, 2026.

Public programme

State of spirit
November 22, 2025, 3pm: guided tour with Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela
January 17, 2026, 3pm: group mural presentation (at Concha Acústica, Jardins do Palácio de Cristal)
January 17, 2026, 5pm: listening session with Quarto Mundo (at Capela Carlos Alberto, Jardins do Palácio de Cristal)
January 29, 2026, 7pm: conference A cosmic vision of late capitalism by Joel Vacheron

Recursions: a cartography of unfinished grounds
November 16, 2025: guided tours—3pm: with Margarida Waco (English); 4pm: with Kiluanji Kia Henda (Portuguese)
January 31, 2026, 11am: Fonoteca Municipal do Porto: Active listening with Kalaf Epalanga
January 31, 2026, 3pm: presentation Anti-Racist Handbook for Arts and Education with UNA União Negra das Artes
February 14, 2026, 5pm: DJ set by Nazar

Learning to teach, teaching to learn with Elvira Leite
December 13, 2025, 3pm: guided tour (Portuguese) with Lúcia Almeida Matos
December 16, 2025–January 16, 2026: Workshops The Space in Between with Cristina Camargo, mediation teams—BOA Arts, PING!/GMP, Bibliotecas Municipais do Porto
February 7, 2026, 10 am–5pm: seminar Thinking about education and art based on Elvira Leite with Amanda Midori, Cat Martins, Joaquim Azevedo, Maria João Vicente, Matilde Seabra, Milice Ribeiro dos Santos, Sofia Victorino, Plano Nacional das Artes and Escola Imaxinada

Guided tours
December 6, 2025, January 3, 2026, and February 7, 2026 (Saturday)
3pm Portuguese / 4pm English