PROGRAM
MAY 1st
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Luciérnagas is, in many ways, a ritual. An attempt to exorcise unresolved traumas in the spectral landscape of Magnum photographer Yael Martínez's homeland in Guerrero, Mexico.
The work began in 2013, after three members of the artist's family disappeared. This tragedy triggered an investigation into the widespread violence of organized crime in the region, into how it infiltrates daily life and transforms the spirit of a place. Later, Martínez followed other families with missing relatives. Through these encounters, connections are established that transcend the artist's immediate family and extend beyond borders, to Honduras, Brazil, and the United States, forming a constellation marked by the shared experience of endemic violence.
Death is not shown directly in Luciérnagas, but its omnipresence is felt, remaining in the shadows of each photograph. Each image is painfully marked by the result of calculated violence that arises unseen and undetected, leaving behind the immense void of a missing loved one. Yet, there is always a sense of hope that guides the construction of this work.
Between 2019 and 2023, Martínez began a series of interventions in his photographs, perforating the prints and backlighting them. Beams of light traverse the images in fluid patterns, projecting clarity onto a dark background. In this process, the light transforms with the scenes depicted and evokes a kind of alchemy where something restorative, cautiously optimistic, and resilient takes shape.
In the fusion between fantasy and reality, Luciérnagas revisits the recurring theme of violence in the Latin American context. More than evoking emotions, the work gives expression to lived experience through the ordinary people who guide us through this territory, affirming the humanity of those who inhabit it and confronting the personal cost of violence. The exhibition is based on the book of the same name, bringing these stories into the exhibition space, where light once again confronts darkness, like a firefly pointing towards new possible realms.
MAY 2nd
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The Térmita Pop-Up Bookstore occupies the 1st floor of NARRATIVA and offers works by national and international authors from different areas of photographic intervention. Founded in 2014 in Porto, Livraria Térmita is a reference in the independent publishing scene in Portugal, dedicated to photography, contemporary art and author publications.
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Portfolio Review with Yael Martínez
An opportunity for project analysis with the guest author of the 2026 CICLO. Yael Martínez (Mexico, 1984) is a photographer whose work originates in the state of Guerrero and explores the social fractures of Mexico and Latin America through an intimate and profoundly human lens. Situated between documentary and conceptual art, his work investigates communities marked by the violence of organized crime and forced disappearances, seeking to express absence, memory, and resilience without resorting to sensationalism. He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 2024 and has been honored with the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, the National Geographic Society Wayfinder Award, and two World Press Photo awards.
Portfolio Review with Mário Cruz (NARRATIVA)
This session aims to showcase projects and works intended for presentation and exhibition at NARRATIVA. It is also an opportunity for those interested in enrolling in the NARRATIVA Masterclass to present their portfolio.
Portfolio Review with XYZ Publisher
XYZ Books is an independent publisher based in Lisbon and founded in 2013. Its focus is on publishing photography books and it frequently works with contemporary photographers. In addition to publishing, XYZ also organizes exhibitions, workshops, residencies, and other photography-related events.
Portfolio Review with Katya Bogachevskaya (Fotografika Publishing)
Katya Bogachevskaya is an independent curator, editor, and teacher. Director of the Fotografika Academy of Documentary and Artistic Photography, founder of Fotografika Publishing and Fotografika Gallery. She is also editor-in-chief of the Photojournal of Republic Media.
Online registration required via form. Registration opens on April 1st.
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Zero, Zero, Zero is an essay that portrays the last months of the author's mother's life, marked by a routine of isolation. During this period, the author observes in his mother's repetitive gesture of filling in word search puzzles, where fragments of memory and clues to her emotional state emerge. The work represents the suspension and end of time. -
A conversation dedicated to the theme of divulgation and promoting photography in Portugal, from the perspective of Carla Bacelar Ferreira, Vice-President of Encontros da Imagem, and Noora Mänty, curator and producer at Encontros da Imagem. The conversation is moderated by Sebastião Almeida, member of NARRATIVA and former journalist for Público, Sábado and Time Out.
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The guest author of the 2026 CICLO NARRATIVA will give a lecture discussing Luciérnagas - in exhibition at NARRATIVA’s gallery - a work that is an attempt to exorcise unresolved traumas in the spectral landscape of the photographer's homeland, Guerrero, Mexico.
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Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards and a New York Times Critic’s Pick, A Photographic Memory is an intimate, genre-bending portrait of the filmmaker’s trailblazing mother, Sheila Turner Seed – a vibrant and pioneering journalist, photographer, and filmmaker, who died suddenly and tragically when Rachel was just 18 months old. Uncovering the vast archive Turner Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Cecil Beaton, Lisette Model, and Gordon Parks, and others, Rachel attempts to build a posthumous relationship with her mother through her interviews, photographs, journals, films, and the stories of those who remember her. The result is an unlikely mother-daughter conversation that evades time and space, exploring universal themes of memory, loss, and legacy.
The screening takes place outdoors at the Teixeira de Pascoais elementary school, in front of NARRATIVA.
MAY 3rd
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A unique sharing opportunity with Magnum photographer Yael Martínez, who will open up about his work process with a group of 10 participants.
Price:
€75 until April 10th
€100 from April 11th onwards
Online registration required via form. Registration opens on April 1st.
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An opportunity for those seeking direct contact with photography in an urban context, guided by photographer Arlindo Camacho.
Participants bring their own photographic equipment.
Number of participants: 10
Online registration required via form. Registration opens on April 1st.
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Quanto pesa um segundo? (How much does a second weigh?)
Time exists and is sovereign, it doesn't stop or wait for anything or anyone. It's a measurable physical quantity on our scale, and that's all. But we have made it a god, and, fearful in our belief, we have shackled it.
In a futile attempt to gain the upper hand in this unequal relationship, we accelerate time to such an extent that we force ourselves to consume and process experiences at great speed, making everything superficial, creating friction that ultimately wears us down.
We are incapable of disconnecting from this circuit because we are afraid of missing something that might pass us by. Everything has to be available, anytime, anywhere.
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The New Talents Open Call aims to give visibility to projects by new authors. In this session, the three works of the three selected emerging authors will be presented.
The call is open until March 23rd.
More information here.
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Delta is a photographic project developed in Ribatejo, where urban expansion and the natural landscape coexist in a fragile and constantly transforming balance. The work observes peripheral territories shaped by infrastructure, industry, and discreet everyday presences, revealing spaces that often go unnoticed.
The project also emerges as a revisiting of a territory linked to the author's family roots, from which he distanced himself early on and which he returns to explore through photography.
Through a restrained and contemplative visual approach, Delta reflects on transformation, memory, and the subtle traces of human occupation inscribed in the landscape, suggesting a territory suspended between past and future.
MAY 4th
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The Lisbon City Council, Goethe-Institut Portugal and NARRATIVA present Lisbon ’87/88, a photography exhibition by German photographers Ute and Werner Mahler, on view at Praça dos Restauradores in Lisbon from May 4 to 29, 2026. Resulting from a project initiated between 1987 and 1988, Lisbon ’87/88 unveils a series of images never before shown in Portugal. Captured during a period of profound change, these photographs reveal a Lisbon in transformation at a turning point in both Portuguese society and the city’s history. Alongside the opening of the exhibition, which will take place at 6 p.m. on May 4 in the presence of the artists, a conversation with Ute and Werner Mahler will be held at the auditorium of the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon on May 5, at 7 p.m., moderated by Mário Cruz, director of NARRATIVA.
In 1987 and 1988, the photographers traveled to Lisbon with journalist Wolfgang Kil to create a travel book for Brockhaus Publishers in Leipzig, intended for readers in the former GDR. For all three, it was their first encounter with a Western country, an experience that shaped the way they observed and documented the unfamiliar city over several weeks.
At that time, Lisbon was experiencing the first effects of Portugal’s accession to the European Community and a political climate signaling a new era. The planned publication was never completed: two years later, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the GDR interrupted the project. The photographic material remained stored for decades until its rediscovery in 2021, revealing a compelling black-and-white portrait of a city in transition seen through the intuitive eyes of two photographers newly encountering its landscape and people.
With Lisbon ’87/88, these images are now presented to the public for the first time, inviting viewers to rediscover the Lisbon of the late 1980s and to reflect on the city’s enduring evolution. The exhibition fosters a dialogue between past and present, between the gaze of photographers from a closed world and that of a city opening itself to Europe.
Installed in the heart of Lisbon at Praça dos Restauradores, the exhibition highlights the shared mission of NARRATIVA, the Goethe-Institut Portugal, and the Lisbon City Council to bring photography into public space and expand access to culture for residents and visitors alike.
Lisbon ’87/88 is organized by the Goethe-Institut Portugal, with curation, production, and communications by NARRATIVA. The Lisbon Municipal Archive is responsible for the exhibition printing, with support from the Lisbon City Council. The project is supported by the São Bartolomeu dos Alemães Association in Lisbon.
4–29 May 2026 | EXHIBITION
With the presence of Ute and Werner Mahler at the opening day, May 4th, at 6pm.
May 5th | 7pm | TALK
Public talk with the authors, Ute and Werner Mahler, moderated by Mário Cruz (NARRATIVA’s director), at the auditorium of the Goethe‑Institut in Lisbon.
PARTICIPANTS
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Yael Martínez (Mexico, 1984) is a photographer whose work emerges from Guerrero, documenting the social fractures of Mexico and Latin America with an intimate and deeply human gaze. His work stands at the intersection of documentary and conceptual art, transforming collective trauma into poetic visual narratives that transcend the literal representation of violence.
A full member of Magnum Photos since 2024. His work investigates communities fragmented by organized crime violence, forced disappearances, and the social impact of these phenomena, but he does so from an approach that rejects sensationalism and instead seeks to express absence, emptiness, and resilience.
His methodology is unique: he physically intervenes his photographs—piercing them, backlighting them, creating visual metaphors—to represent what cannot be directly photographed.
In projects like Luciérnagas, initiated after the disappearance of three members of his own family, he transforms points of light into symbols of memory and resistance.
Among his most notable recognitions are the Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography; the National Geographic Society Wayfinder Award; and two World Press Photo awards.
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Founded in 2014 in Porto, Livraria Térmita is a reference in the independent publishing scene in Portugal, dedicated to photography, contemporary art and author publications.
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Fotografika Publishing is an independent publishing house founded by Katya Bogachevskaya, focused on contemporary photography. It aims to support emerging photographers, particularly through the production of their first photobooks, fostering new voices in the field.
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Katya Bogachevskaya is an independent curator, editor and lecturer.
Director of the Academy of documentary and art photography Fotografika, founder of Fotografika Publishing and Fotografika Gallery.
Chief in editor in Photojournal of Republic Media.
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XYZ Books is an independent publisher based in Lisbon and founded in 2013. It focuses on publishing photography books and frequently works with contemporary photographers.
In addition to publishing, XYZ also organizes exhibitions, workshops, residencies and other events related to photography.
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Tiago Casanova is one of the founders of the XYZ Books Publishing house and Bookshop in 2013, and has been exhibiting his work regularly in solo and group shows since 2006.
Besides the work he produces in the context of his artistic investigation and practice, he also develops a professional career as an editor, book-maker, curator and exhibition designer.
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Mário Cruz is an independent photographer, editor and curator dedicated to themes related to human rights and social injustice.
Double World Press Photo winner with the projects Talibes Modern Day Slaves and Living Among What’s Left Behind. He is the founder and director of NARRATIVA, a cultural space in Lisbon that promotes photography as a form of expression and communication.
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José Fonseca Fernandes was born in Coimbra in 1986.
He studied photography at the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Lisbon. He interned at the Público newspaper and was a contributor to the i newspaper for two years. He currently lives in Lisbon, where he works as a freelance photographer and contributor to the Expresso newspaper.
In 2020 he participated in the NARRATIVA Masterclass, led by Mário Cruz. In 2023 he co-founded the NARRATIVA association.
His work has been included in several group exhibitions, including: Lisboa Ainda – Olhares Sobre a Cidade em Quarentena (Lisbon Still – Glimpses of the City in Quarantine), at the Lisbon Museum (2020); Edição Limitada (Limited Edition), at the Santa Maria Maior Gallery (2022), promoted by the CC11 Association; and Retrospectiva – 10 Anos NARRATIVA (Retrospective – 10 Years of NARRATIVA), at the Augusto Cabrita Municipal Auditorium, in Barreiro (2024).
In 2021 he received an Honorable Mention at Estação Imagem with the work Surda Cegueira (Deaf Blindness). He is also the co-author, with Marta Gonçalves and João Melancia, of the report Calais, The Labyrinth, published in Expresso and distinguished in the Refugees category at the 24th edition of the European Newspaper Awards.
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Vice-President of the Encontros da Imagem Association and Executive Producer of the Encontros da Imagem - International Photography and Visual Arts Festival .
She has a degree in Photography from the School of Technology of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar and a master's degree in Curatorial Studies from the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra. She completed her training in photography and cultural production with parallel programmes. She began collaborating with Encontros da Imagem - International Photography and Visual Arts Festival in 2015, producing and supporting exhibitions, joining the team and the Cultural Association the following year. In 2021, she joined the Board of the Association as vice-president, as well as the Festival.
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Noora Mänty is a Finnish curator, cultural producer, and visual artist based in Portugal. With a background in photography and over a decade of experience in the arts, her work focuses on curatorial practice, cultural management, and collaborative visual storytelling across disciplines and geographies.
She currently serves as Gallery Director at Galeria da Estação in Braga, where she oversees curatorial programming, institutional partnerships, and a diverse public programme ranging from exhibitions to workshops and live events. In 2023 she was the co-director of the Encontros da Imagem Festival, one of Europe’s leading photography festivals. She is also the executive producer of Linhas de Perspectiva, a photography podcast created in collaboration with Passos Audiovisuais, Associação Cultural (PAVAC), which explores photographic practice through conversations with leading professionals in the field.
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Rachel Elizabeth Seed is a nonfiction storyteller based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, working in film, photography, and writing.
Her debut feature, A Photographic Memory, won the 2025 Truer Than Fiction Spirit Award and was a New York Times Critics Pick.
Formerly a photo editor at New York Magazine, her photography has been exhibited internationally, and she has worked as a cameraperson on award-winning documentaries.
Rachel is also Executive Director and Co-founder of the Brooklyn Documentary Club, a NYC-based filmmakers’ collective.
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Arlindo Camacho is a Portuguese documentary photographer and cinematographer.
He studied photography at Ar.Co and at the Portuguese Institute of Photography.
He is currently one of the main photographers for VISÃO and PRIMA magazines.
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António Saldanha, Lisbon, 1992
With a background in violin and communication, he divides his time between music and photography.
He participated in the 2024/2025 Masterclass NARRATIVA and was an award-winning author in the 2025 Fnac New Talents competition with the project How Much Does a Second Weight.
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Rodrigo Vargas (Lisbon, 1986) is a Portuguese photographer dedicated to exploring territory and observing places and elements that are not immediately apparent in everyday life. His work investigates space through different photographic languages, exploring perspectives and subtle relationships that reveal new ways of looking at the environment around us.
He completed a Master's degree in Artistic Photography at IPCI (2021–2022) with a merit scholarship. He was distinguished in the FNAC New Talents 2023, selected for the Vila Franca de Xira Photography Biennial (2022 and 2024), and won the Território Photography Prize 2025.
He lives and works in Lisbon as a full-time photographer and instructor. He is the founder of The Framers and a founding member of the NARRATIVA cultural association, which promotes photography through exhibitions, workshops, and educational projects.
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With their photographic work, as teachers and co-founders of the renowned Ostkreuz photography agency and the Ostkreuschule Berlin, Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler are among the most important personalities in German photography.
After studying at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, they both pursued their photographic careers independently of each other with different focuses.
In 2008, they decided to photograph under one authorship. In their joint long-term projects, they address current political, social and personal conditions.
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Fujifilm Portugal supports NARRATIVA since its foundation, promoting the development of free access workshops, exhibitions and socially-oriented projects.
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Founded in 1993, Moldura Minuto is the largest company in its field operating in Portugal, offering an innovative framing and fine-art printing service.
Moldura Minuto provides fundamental support to NARRATIVA in the production of all exhibitions.
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