Sometimes museums stop being spaces for artistic contemplation and become educational settings, where each visitor has the freedom to be interested and learn as they wish about topics such as current politics, civil society, citizenship and everything they can by appealing to our empathy for what it can. that we have in common in the world brings to the foreground our emotional agenda and our daily personal interests. These three examples are available in Lisbon and provide, in addition to the obvious, well-documented and pertinent reflection, an emotional confrontation with realities that, for various reasons, can easily escape us, always entertained by problems in which we are also protagonists.

“Open Sea”, Nicolas Floc’h

MAAT, until August 26

The Frenchman Nicolas Floc’h exposes impressive color scales of the waters of both the Tagus River and those of the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, reproducing, through hundreds of photographs, what so many kilometers of ecological explanations may not. have achieved: the relationship of human action in the degradation of the planet with respect to the underwater environment.

It is not at all an ecological manifesto, but it manages to guide us towards a critical consciousness that could well become an active consciousness of what must be done to prolong the life of the Earth and of the implications that our action will have on the lives of everyone. future. In a balance of obsessive “color landscapes”, the French photographer advances through the senses and our perception of them with the strength that the chromatic palette he presents has always worked on the subconscious of the human being and what can be your well being.

“Marina Tabassum: Materials, movements and architecture in Bangladesh”

MAC-CCB, until September 22

Floor 0 of the Museum of Contemporary Art presents the fabulous work of architect Marina Tabassum in her homeland, Bangladesh, and impressively shows how sensitivity can be the most powerful resource to save lives and build houses that save lives and houses. which are refuges for both the spirit and the body. The work of what is considered one of the most influential personalities of our time is also a mirror of the history of a country with just over 50 years of existence (Bangladesh became independent in 1971) and reflects an unusual ability to interpret the essence of life. and human beings within a world where power, matter and nature rule the most.

Various works built since 1995 are on display, with emphasis on the Independence Museum and Monument in Dhaka and the project for a monumental refugee camp that houses 1.2 million Rohingyas. Marina Tabassum, 56, shows a rare ability to respond to the most difficult challenges with intelligence and practicality, at the same time with a lively sense of commitment to the relational links between people and the environment, creating spaces where community It is always, always in the center. An example of sharing, where there is no place for individualism.

“Family albums, photographs of the African diaspora in Greater Lisbon (1975-present)”

Padrão dos Descobrimentos, until November 30

Curators Filipa Lowndes Vicente and Inocência Mata put their finger on the wound of a country that did not know how to face its colonial past, by looking for the obvious: the life of the African diaspora in Lisbon. And it is a wonderful journey into the universe of affections of thousands of families of African origin who settled in the Portuguese capital shortly after April 25 and until today. The family albums and the photographs that occupy them, so identical, because exactly the same as ours, narrate the daily life of this diaspora in this country with their eyes closed or half-opened.

They are their struggles, their faces, their worries, their abilities, their dreams, their disappointments, their joys, their victories, their stories, their books, their poems, their heroes, their brothers, their parents, their children, their cousins, everything that is yours, which is exactly the same as what is ours, what belongs to everyone. They are the same photo albums of everyone who was part of our lives because we loved them, and who only differ in the color of their skin. The story is the same story and it is told that way too.