What are the limits of Lisbon?
Lisbon, which is Portugal, and the rest is landscape.
Or rather, what lies beyond Lisbon’s limits?
What is hidden behind this cosmopolitan city, standing at the crossroads of time, memory, and countless fractures?
What are the limits of Lisbon?
Lisbon, which is Portugal, and the rest is landscape.
Or rather, what lies beyond Lisbon’s limits?
What is hidden behind this cosmopolitan city, standing at the crossroads of time, memory, and countless fractures?
"Lisbon is Portugal, and the rest is landscape"
"Lisbon is Portugal, and the rest is landscape"
Lisbon is yellow.
It is Pombal’s dream.
It shines like gold.
And gold burns red.
Lisbon is yellow.
It is Pombal’s dream.
It shines like gold.
And gold burns red.
Our histories intersected at some point, in some way.
My name.
My ancestry, as far back as I can trace it.
My language.
Period.
It is curious how something across the ocean can feel so strangely close. To cross the Atlantic and still speak your own language. As if time folded in on itself, shrinking distances. But the truth is different. The truth is that we are drifting further and further apart.
We speak less, understand less.
We fight ghosts that aren’t even there.
Or maybe they are.
Our histories intersected at some point, in some way.
My name.
My ancestry, as far back as I can trace it.
My language.
Period.
It is curious how something across the ocean can feel so strangely close. To cross the Atlantic and still speak your own language. As if time folded in on itself, shrinking distances. But the truth is different. The truth is that we are drifting further and further apart.
We speak less, understand less.
We fight ghosts that aren’t even there.
Or maybe they are.
It’s all an illusion.
It’s all an illusion.
Speak is to exist absolutely for the other.
Speak is to exist absolutely for the other.
Yet, when I speak my own language in Portugal, it is as if I cease to exist. The language that should be my bridge becomes a wall. English brings me back into presence, somehow. It seems that Methuen is still there.
Yet, when I speak my own language in Portugal, it is as if I cease to exist. The language that should be my bridge becomes a wall. English brings me back into presence, somehow. It seems that Methuen is still there.
Bittersweet.
Bittersweet.
"To speak… is above all to assume a culture, to bear the weight of a civilization"
"To speak… is above all to assume a culture, to bear the weight of a civilization"
What do the whitewashed walls hide behind the Portuguese stone stairways of Alfama?
Up there, where is the grace of Graça?
What remains beyond the waves of tourism and gentrification cascading down these hills?
Why does it feel so strange to hear, at every corner, the music of my own country, in my own language?
Why does speaking to someone there feel like stepping into another world?
And what do my fellow countryfellows tell me when I meet them — over and over again ?
24% of the foreign workforce.
What do the whitewashed walls hide behind the Portuguese stone stairways of Alfama?
Up there, where is the grace of Graça?
What remains beyond the waves of tourism and gentrification cascading down these hills?
Why does it feel so strange to hear, at every corner, the music of my own country, in my own language?
Why does speaking to someone there feel like stepping into another world?
And what do my fellow countryfellows tell me when I meet them — over and over again ?
24% of the foreign workforce.
Lisbon is distant.
A foreign land.
Lisbon is distant.
A foreign land.
I am a foreigner in a country where traces of my own culture surround me.
But to be surrounded by something is not to belong to it.
I am a foreigner in a country where traces of my own culture surround me.
But to be surrounded by something is not to belong to it.
Every human problem must be considered from the standpoint of time. The ideal would be for the present to always serve to build the future.
So I wonder — what is being built there?
Every human problem must be considered from the standpoint of time. The ideal would be for the present to always serve to build the future.
So I wonder — what is being built there?
The very idea that a foreign language could have once been the language of Portugal is unbearable.
The very idea that a foreign language could have once been the language of Portugal is unbearable.
What about the idea that a language
can become foreign within itself?
What about the idea that a language
can become foreign within itself?
Images taken from 2022 to 2025. Shot on:
Images taken from 2022 to 2025. Shot on:
Fujifilm X-Pro 3
Fujifilm X-Pro 3
Fujifilm Instax Evo
Fujifilm Instax Evo
iPhone 11
iPhone 11
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro
Lumix GX80
Lumix GX80
Source
Source
Books:
Books:
Black Skin, White Masks – Frantz Fanon
Black Skin, White Masks – Frantz Fanon
Movies:
Movies:
Lisbon Story – Win Wenders
Lisbon Story – Win Wenders
Terra Estrangeira – Walter Salles
Terra Estrangeira – Walter Salles
Songs:
Songs:
Alfama – Madredeus
Alfama – Madredeus
Ginga – Sara Tavares
Ginga – Sara Tavares
Articles:
Articles:
Quotes:
Quotes:
‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world’
Ludwig Wittgenstein
‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world’
Ludwig Wittgenstein