Self-Uncensored [Talks on Choice]

A series of conversations on self-censorship and choice

To what extent do we choose freely when algorithms, institutions, emotions, and norms shape our decisions? To what extent are we aware of the mechanisms that precede choice and produce self-censorship — within ourselves and within the systems we inhabit?

Self-Uncensored [Talks on Choice] is a series of conversations proposing an open and informal space for dialogue between invited speakers responsible for the provocation interventions and the audience, where listening and disagreement can coexist, building bridges between perspectives and ways of thinking about choice and self-censorship.

It starts from the premise that freedom implies recognizing different experiences and accepting error as part of a dialogue that makes more visible the mechanisms that precede choice — both individual and collective.

Session #1 — Self-Censorship of the Individual

Internal mechanisms of choice and self-censorship

February 22 (Sunday) · 3pm–6pm
DuplaCena 77 (Regueirão dos Anjos 77 A)

Conversation
In Portuguese
Free entry, no registration required

Choice before expression and action. Before the public gesture. This session examines the internal and invisible factors — emotional, ethical, and neurocognitive — that inform individual decisions, often outside the field of consciousness. Self-censorship appears here as an anticipatory process: not as external prohibition, but as internal management of risk, fear, and consequences.

Guests:

• Ana Pais – Dramaturg and Performance Studies Researcher – Emotions, free will, and freedom
• Mafalda Sebastião – Lawyer (Cultural Law) – Do we choose between ethics and law?
• Adrian Razvan Sandru – Researcher at Champalimaud Foundation — Self-censorship: from social mechanism to political instrument
• João Pedro Fonseca – Artist and co-artistic director/researcher at ZABRA – Creating between control and loss of control

Moderation:

Maria Giulia Pinheiro – Writer, stage director, and cultural agitator

Production: ORG.I.A
Support: DuplaCena
Institutional support: Lisbon City Council – Culture and Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth and Sport / Directorate-General for the Arts

Moderation

Maria Giulia Pinheiro – Writer, stage director, and cultural agitator

Maria Giulia Pinheiro (São Paulo, 1990) is an artist of encounter, creator, dramaturg, stage director, and cultural agitator. A PhD candidate at the University of Coimbra, she received the Female Playwriting Award for New Dramaturgy in 2022. She is the author of six books of poetry and drama, serves as artistic director of FALA, and is a columnist for Público Br, the section of Público dedicated to the Brazilian community in Portugal.

She has created theatrical works such as Viemos Roubar os Vossos Maridos (2025) and A Palavra Mais Bonita (2019–), performative projects such as Todo Mundo SLAM (2019–) and Slam no CAM (2025–), and also develops educational platforms such as the Feminist Dramaturgy Hub (2017–) and ZONA lê (2014–).

In 2025/26, she was creator, curator, dramaturg, and performer of the Laboratório de Confluências, held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation within the framework of the exhibition Complexo Brasil.
More at: www.mariagiuliapinheiro.com

Guests and Interventions

Adrian Razvan Sandru

Researcher at the Champalimaud Foundation
Self-censorship: from social mechanism to political instrument

As social beings, we adapt to the context in which we find ourselves, which is reflected in how we speak and act in different situations. Self-censorship can be seen as a mechanism of social adaptation, suppressing what is inappropriate to a given context. However, when social dynamics become imbalanced, leading to asymmetrical power relations, self-censorship can transform into a tool of oppression.

Thus, self-censorship not only reveals our adaptation, but also the balance or imbalance of contextual power relations. Through two artistic examples (literature and performance), I will demonstrate how self-censorship is chosen and how its act and mode reveal power dynamics.

Adrian Razvan Sandru completed his PhD in Phenomenology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, in 2020, with a thesis on the nature of subjectivity in liminal situations. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Champalimaud Foundation, contributing to translational research focused on developing conceptual frameworks and naturalistic experimental projects for the study of lived experience. He has published several articles and a book on the meaning of the self in situations of uncertainty, contributing to theoretical developments in phenomenological approaches to the non-rational dimensions of subjectivity. He has also published articles, a book, and an edited volume on morality and the sociopolitical consequences of philosophical thought, emphasizing the role of community in human well-being.

Ana Pais

Dramaturg and Performance Studies Researcher
Emotions, free will, and freedom

If emotions condition our decisions — and are therefore often used to influence us individually and socially — how do we know whether we act freely and consciously? In other words, how free is our free will?

Ana Pais is an Assistant Researcher (CEEC) at ICNOVA – Universidade Nova de Lisboa, dramaturg, and curator. She is currently Principal Investigator of the FCT-funded project FREEWILL: Free Will and the Desire for Freedom: Affects in the Performance of Democracy. She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies (CET-UL).

In 2022–23 she was a Visiting Professor in the postgraduate program in Performing Arts at UFBA (Salvador, Bahia). She is the author of O Discurso da Cumplicidade. Dramaturgias Contemporâneas (2004), Ritmos Afectivos nas Artes Performativas (2018), and Quem tem medo das emoções? (2022).

She also edited the anthology Performance in the Public Sphere (2017, Orfeu Negro) and its English version, available for free download at www.performativa.pt. She was theatre critic for Público (2003) and Expresso (2004). As a dramaturg, she has collaborated with theatre and dance creators in Portugal, including João Brites, Tiago Rodrigues, Sónia Baptista, and Miguel Pereira.

João Pedro Fonseca

Artist and co-artistic director/researcher at ZABRA
Creating between control and loss of control

Artists, accustomed to managing every element of their work, increasingly confront ecosystems that reconfigure their creative agency. Institutional rules, algorithms, technical limitations, bureaucracy, and invisible norms transform the creative gesture: what was once autonomous and sensitive becomes reprogrammed by external forces.

We live in an era of anticipatory self-censorship, in which internal adaptation processes become central, and creative consciousness is reshaped as the creator ceases to be the engineer of their own work and thought, becoming instead a subsystem within larger systems.

João Pedro Fonseca is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work explores post-human politics and speculative philosophies, focusing on the interaction between technology and nature. He is currently co-artistic director of ZABRA – Center for Post-Human Art Research.

His artistic research engages with themes such as cyber-spirituality, transcendence, xenomorphism, molecular faith, artificial intelligences, and the immaterial properties of existence. Working across performance, installation, video art, and scenography, he explores the body-machine relationship as both conceptual axis and aesthetic language.

Mafalda Sebastião

Lawyer (Cultural Law)
Do we choose between ethics and law?

Mafalda Sebastião holds a Law degree, postgraduate qualifications in Labor Law and Cultural Heritage Law, and a Master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from the Faculty of Law of Lisbon.

She coordinates the Cultural Hub Gaivotas | Boavista, which includes Loja Lisboa Cultura, under Lisbon City Council. She previously taught Production I in the Performing Arts BA at ESTAL and currently teaches Law in the Theatre Production course at the School of Theatre and Cinema (ESTC), Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon.

She was a producer at São Luiz Municipal Theatre (2007–2016) and a lawyer at EGEAC (2003–2006). Since 2002, she has worked as a jurist in Labor Law and Cultural Law, including Intellectual Property.