Codes, censorship and resistance
Ana Borralho & João Galante, Emmanuel Ndefo, Isabél Zuaa, Jana Shostak, Mohammad Abbasi

TBA – Teatro do Bairro Alto
25 JAN 2026 – Sunday
4pm–8pm (with Intermission)
€10 (discounts available)

In Portuguese and English, no subtitles

Performing Arts and discourse

Tickets: SOLD OUT

 
Self-Uncensored is a project that questions contemporary forms of censorship in so-called “democratic” contexts, focusing on the mechanisms that lead to self-censorship and internalised censorship.
Conceived as an expanded festival, it unfolds over time through short-duration events presented in different spaces and contexts. At TBA, it presents the edition Self-Uncensored [UnCoding], which explores the idea of “code” across multiple layers: as language, as a system of conduct, as a structure of control and, simultaneously, as a possibility of escape.
 
Self-Uncensored [UnCoding] proposes a reflection on the visible and invisible mechanisms that shape discourse, showing how artists from different contexts respond to structures that both impose censorship and contain cracks that allow escape through coded languages.
Between performance, lecture-performance, video and conversation, Self-Uncensored [UnCoding] brings together different voices and practices — from intimate testimony to political gesture — to think about freedom, language and self-censorship within the contemporary context of surveillance and digital normativity.
The programme is conceived as a space of friction and listening, where code becomes metaphor, escape and reprogramming, bringing together artistic proposals that explore the limits between freedom and restriction.
 
 
Iranian choreographer and filmmaker Mohammad Abbasi, also founder of The Invisible Center of Contemporary Dance, an underground dance platform in Iran, presents I am my mother and Manifesto on Autonomy, works that confront the tensions between freedom and exile, revealing the mechanisms of censorship and power that run through artistic practice.

In DE•NEGRIR or becoming black, between speech and gesture, Isabél Zuaa — a Luso-Guinean-Angolan multidisciplinary artist with lived experience in Brazil — draws on her own trajectory to reflect on what is considered viable and non-viable within the contemporary scene.
Nigerian choreographer, performer and multidisciplinary researcher Emmanuel Ndefo proposes, in Ecstatic Antibodies, a meditation on the body, desire and Afro-queer spirituality, evoking codes of communion and dissidence.

In Manual de resistência para 2050 (Manual of Resistance for 2050), Ana Borralho & João Galante present a lecture-performance-concert that transforms collapse into a performative code, using fiction and irony as a language to imagine other forms of resistance and future.

With Minute of Scream For.., Belarusian artist and activist Jana Shostak turns the scream into a political language — a code of resistance and solidarity in the face of violence and silencing.

The day concludes with a conversation with the group of artists, moderated by Sepideh Khodarahmi — an Iranian-Swedish artist based between Portugal and Sweden, whose practice explores erotics, intimacy, hyper-gender and power.
 

Programme

Mohammad Abbasi
I AM MY MOTHER

Isabél Zuaa
DE•NEGRIR OR BECOMING BLACK

Emmanuel Ndefo
ECSTATIC ANTIBODIES

Ana Borralho & João Galante
MANUAL DE RESISTÊNCIA 2050

Mohammad Abbasi
MANIFESTO ON AUTONOMY

Jana Shostak
MINUTE OF SCREAM FOR..

Artist talk with Ana Borralho & João Galante, Emmanuel Ndefo, Isabél Zuaa, Jana Shostak, Mohammad Abbasi
Moderated by: Sepideh Khodarahmi

The programme also includes a workshop by Mohammad Abbasi, taking place from 26–30 January 2026 at O Rumo do Fumo.

ARTISTS AND SYNOPSIS

https://self-mistake.pt/en/sm/self-uncensored-1/

SELF-UNCENSORED INFO:

https://self-mistake.pt/en/projects/self_uncensored/

Direction and Curation: Tânia M. Guerreiro
Artists: Ana Borralho & João Galante, Emmanuel Ndefo, Isabél Zuaa, Jana Shostak, Mohammad Abbasi
Conversation Moderation: Sepideh Khodarahmi
Executive Production: Marta Moreira and Daniela Leitão
Technical Direction: Ana Carocinho
Lighting Consultancy: Ângela Bismarck
Image: Ema Ramos
Production: ORG.I.A (SELF-MISTAKE / SELF-UNCENSORED)
Co-production: Teatro do Bairro Alto
Support: O Rumo do Fumo and Polo Cultural Gaivotas | Boavista
Institutional Support: Lisbon City Council – Culture; Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth and Sports / Directorate-General for the Arts