Athens, the capital of Greece, is the epicentre of the crisis, and the place where the economical, human and anthropological consequences of this are more visible and obvious: hundreds of people daily line up to receive a free meal from a charity soup kitchen, about one third of the shops located in downtown were forced to close, and the number of homeless people dramatically increased, leading to the tragic outgrowth of other problems, such as the expansion of drug addiction, prostitution and serious diseases like tuberculosis and HIV. So far, the social tension in the city is showing no signs of decreasing, as proved by the more and more raging demonstrations against the Government policies, and the recurrent, cruel, racist attacks. BSC

Portugal is undergoing one of the worst crises of his most recent social history. Unemployment reaches levels never seen before, stores close, services are reduced, social assistance get increasingly part of everyday life for many families, the population ages, the younger generation, the most qualified ever, leaves the country
by need and unwilling to return. One of the major differences between Portugal and other countries in financial crisis situation, it is the shame feeling with which we live this crisis. Ours is a crisis of shame, indoors and capital Lisbon is a cold, frozen in time city, full of empty shops, shadows, reflections and people crestfallen. PN

Near 400 sub-Saharan immigrants survive in the mount Gurugú, in Morocco, waiting of an opportunity to jump the fence that separates them from Melilla, Spain, and from their dream of being employed at Europe. Many of them, between which there are minors, denounce violence from the police and the Moroccan army. PA

When it is not coming in uninvited through your front door, it is through the television that the most severe economical crisis in the Portuguese democracy invades Portuguese people’s homes. Between the daily news, the big stories and multiple commentators’ analysis, news blocs are dominated by it. In television, as in newspapers, people face scenarios which two years ago were pure and simple taboos: Greece’s exit of the euro or the implosion of the eurozone itself. An all time new vocabulary comes in with words such as “Eurobonds” or “spreads”. Just as those reality-reflecting ads. Live and colors, always. APS

In 1975, at the height of the Cold War, six Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay) then ruled by right wing military dictatorships, created Operation Condor. It was a joint secret military plan aimed at eliminating political opponents using common resources, exchanging information, prisoners and torture techniques. This plan, which was carried out over more than 3 years, resulted in the “extrajudicial executions” of at least 60,000 people, mostly leftist youths inspired by the Cuban revolution. The number of victims may be much higher, but cannot be confirmed both because of the secrecy in which the repression took place, and because, in some cases, mass executions took place and the bodies were “disappeared”. Many relatives of the victims still don’t know what happened to their loved ones, and the majority of those responsible for their deaths and disappearances have never been brought to justice.This project was produced in the six countries involved in Operation Condor, photographing both survivors, families of the disappeared, funerals and trials against some of the perpretators. JCP

This work questions, in these very peculiar period, the relationship between the inhabited and the uninhabited. These constructions – which could be thousands of others throughout the country – are life projects, abandoned, dark, in a desolated territory, that takes them as wounds, and that are rotting and transforming the cities, forgetting the fathers and mothers, children and elders that should habit these places. Their absence, in spaces that should simmer with life, is the best portrait of the impotence that thousands of families experience. In these buildings, there’s a light that reminds us of the difference between what reality is and what it should be, and that is no more than a metaphor of the constructions and lives interrupted. The human element is present in the simulacrum, in the light that is life and, at the same time, paradoxically, what inhabits the uninhabitable. NG

In May 2011, the finance ministers of the eurozone approved the loan of 78 billion euros to Portugal. After Ireland and Greece, Portugal became the third country to seek international financial aid to overcome the financial difficulties. The year 2012 brought austerity after austerity resulting in a country plunged into unemployment, poverty and despair without end in sight. PM

There are always two sides for the same story. In the city of Amadora, outskirts of Lisbon, there’s the city hall, the neighbors of a clandestine hood and, in between, the announced end for a territory of 250 shags still to demolish. It’s always the same uncertainty, in each and every one of the unannounced demolishing mornings: at which of the doors will they be knocking today? Will my house be shred to the pieces? The place looks just like a unfinished warzone. There are opened to the gut houses, the inside exposed to everyone’s eyes, doors knocked down, and rubbish all over the place. The city hall has one mission and there is no stopping until it’s done: it has to terminate the clandestine neighborhood of Santa Filomena. From 1998 to September 2012, 180 families left the place. Not all got relocated. APS

António and Elsa live with their three children in a hill next to the abandoned train station of Brinches-Serpa. They can’t get a job and they live of the Social Integration Income and of odd jobs on agriculture. They had to abandon their house in Serpa because they didn’t have how to pay the rent. Their relatives and friends pass by the hill regularly to drop some food, water and toys. AB

Taxi drivers have a high-risk job. All over the world, the annual figures of violent assaults, traffic accidents, and stress and pollution related diseases, to which they are subject, are big. And in India it’s no different. But India’s taxi and rickshaw drivers seem imune to all those stresses and dangers. During the hot and humid days (the average high temperature in Mumbai during february and march is 33° C), they take what free time they have to rest, to escape from the chaotic, intense traffic of the city. They sleep, in any place and position possible. PE

In 2012 Mónica Calle has decided to revisit The Foolish Virgin, a poetic text by Arthur Rimbaud about an estranged and obsessive love. It is not the first time that Mónica takes this text and makes a show. It is a revisiting of the same exercise done twenty years ago, a repetition that doesn’t repeats itself because this is no longer the same body, these aren’t the same emotions, but it’s still the same person, the same actress. In a narrow street of Cais do Sodré, twenty years later, the actress questions herself: why am I doing this? Many other questions interpose to this one: how is my body now? how many memories, how many pashions, children, injuries are present and what are their consequences on the show? To Mónica there is no character, there’s a body and from that body come out words, gestures. That is the work and it all looks for the truth. In Mónica’s theatre there’s no place for ilusion and artifice. This show is a confrontation between then and now, with work and with herself, with poetry and freedom. 
It only makes sense to return to this if I feel, again, free. Mónica Calle in Público 2012. BS

The play Aduela is a project that aims to create a contemporary circus resorting to the dialogue between different disciplines. It takes place in Fábrica, Street Alegria, by courtesy of ESMAE. The work explores social, political and philosophical issues of modern society. Since 2009 it has been seeking new ways of presenting the circus by elevating the classic virtuosity to a new way of communication par excellence. The play started as an invitation made by the producer Ideias Peregrinas for the opening of the show “Spera Mundi”. The project, which was commissioned by Guimarães – European Capital of Culture 2012, was developed in order to connect both capitals of culture (along with Maribor, Slovenia). PP

One of the biggest fires in Madeira Island happened in July 2012, which burned more than five thousand hectares, of which more than half relate to agricultural and urban space. The fires damaged 40 houses in Madeira inhabited, 15 of which were completely destroyed that lived about 120 people left homeless. It is estimated that around 70 cars were completely destroyed. We note in this report that, Mrs. Maria José, Mrs. Aldora Gouveia, Mr. João Correia, Mrs. Maria da Luz and Mr. Emanuel Silva, saw their homes being destroyed by the flames. Marcelino Ferreira owner of a carpentry shop that was totally in ashes, accounts havoc on the order of 500 thousand euros. OP

These photographs are two small villages in neighbor countries, Senegal and Guinea Bissau. They are images showing coexistence of people with the trash. The lack of litter control the population makes use poorly located landfills, causing many diseases affecting the population, all children and sick people. Many people come daily to these dumps to scavenge items after recycle, sell or simply consume. Drinking water is one of the main shortcomings every day affects more people. Currently the water consumed is a major cause of the high spread of diseases. GT

Last summer in Spain more than 165,000 acres of forest have burned. It has become the worst year in terms of fire extinguishing. These data demonstrate that we have to execute appropriate policies to the good management of the natural heritage, and to minimize the effects of fire in the coming years. PA

May be someone I know, a neighbor, a friend. Were many coworkers. Might be myself. Might be my daughter, my father, my family. So many. Many families. Men and women. Young and old. Many people. Too many. Huge. Beyond numbers or statistics, is that people we talk about when it comes to unemployment. This project began on May 1, 2012, and with the duration of 365 days is meant to show 365 faces. Pictured in a newspaper blog. No colors. Without lens filters. Without artificiality. With regular 50mm lens used in is maximum aperture. Eye to eye. With dignity. An individual per day. Every day. These people are some of the real unemployment in Portugal. (In the EU, there are officially  26,338 million unemployed people. In the space of a year more than 1.805 million people get out of the labor market. After Spain and Greece, Portugal is the country with the third highest rate of unemployment. By the end of the year there will be over a million people unemployed, not counting those who are outside the labor market, because they have given up looking for work). DR

A number of studies indicate that the average life expectancy has increased in the last decades. The implementation of technology, agriculture, medicine and sanitation have contributed to this phenomenon. As a result, this significant part of the population is reaching an age that does not permit this population to participate in labour and to contribute to the production of everyday activities and self-maintenance. The growth of the a population over sixty five years – the age of retirement – is only increasing to such an extent that the elderly population might constitute half of the entire European population in the coming twenty years. Could ageing thus be understood as an encumbering blessing? In affluent societies, the demands of the labour of high performance that is paired with the increasing life expectancy, a culture of care homes has been put in place. Care homes are part social club, dispensaries and hospices. This culture of displacement stands in contrast with social values of the traditions of living together and growing old under one homestead, whereby senior members of the family were taken care by the the offsprings. Such cultures can still be found in rural areas and some parts of African countries [...]. MM

The 24th of August is the day of the famous pilgrimage to São Bartolomeu do Mar, a seaside parish in the north of Portugal named after its patron saint. This peculiar tradition can be traced back to the sixteenth century. On this day, pilgrims walk around the local church carrying a black chicken (“pito”, as the locals say) and then walk under the paso, and then head to the ocean to “walk through” the waves that come in uneven numbers: three, five, seven or nine, in a practice called the Holy Bath. These rituals are meant to keep children safe from demoniacal influences. The population, particularly the children, dresses as an angel or a saint in order to participate in the pilgrimage. These portraits were taken between 2007 and 2012. AC

Internationally, many football players give their first touches in a ball in a field of dirt bare. Players like Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o are good examples. In this story I try to show the pleasure that African children have in playing football even barefoot or in sandals, they do a lot of dust when playing among them. The photos were taken in the village of Dulombi and Galomaro in Guinea Bissau. There are two villages that belonged where the Portuguese military were hosted during colonial war. Today the barracks and fields are abandoned and serve as a “football field” for young football fans of those villages. DR