TransFemina
TransFemina project aims to actively contribute to the promotion of social cohesion and inclusion by involving groups that are usually under-represented (women, non-binary people, and other identities and statuses) in spaces of participation and decision-making. It adopts an intersectional approach that brings together different collectives, artists, activists, researchers, urban planners, and/or people with political decision-making power. The project is grounded in participatory artistic practices in public spaces, engaging local communities in the three partner cities in the co-creation of artistic interventions, sound walks, and investigations into everyday urban life through a feminist and intersectional lens.
TransFemina: Intersectional Landscapes is a project funded by Creative Europe and a collaboration among three feminist collectives of artists, activists, and researchers: PELE – Associação Social e Cultural, based in Porto, Portugal; Collettivo Amigdala, from Modena, Italy; and Col·lectiu Punt 6, from Barcelona, Spain.
Website Transfemina
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Local Laboratory Porto
Since September 2024, the Porto Local Laboratory has brought together participants aged 25 to 80, from Portugal, Brazil, Italy, and France, who mapped their “daily paths”: real, emotional, and imaginary records of what they saw, heard, felt, and carried through the city, as well as what remained invisible or unheard. Throughout the sessions, these materials were explored, questioning how bodies occupied public space through presence, movement, care, and rupture, while experimenting with vulnerability and empathy as poetic and transformative forces in human and more-than-human relationships.
TransNational Meeting Porto
On March 19 and 20, 2025, this work gained public visibility with the 2nd Transnational Meeting in Porto, which brought together 121 proposals selected from the Open Call “How to Feminize your City?”. The meeting, organized by the consortium PELE, Collettivo Amigdala, and Col·lectiu Punt 6, created a space for sharing and reflection on ways to promote more feminist, fair, and inclusive cities through conversations, workshops, installations, and exploratory walks.
The works presented — such as From where a name becomes memory by Paola Espinoza, Si las paredes hablasen by Paula Sitka, and the documentary Vozes Silenciadas — addressed themes of violence, memory, resistance, and aging in urban contexts marked by inequality and gentrification. Workshops such as Mijavelhas às Fontaínhas, FEMonumental Transformance, and Breaking Barriers with Parkour challenged participants to rethink how to inhabit and reclaim public space through movement and collective creation.
The TransNational Meeting in Porto was supported by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto, the Bonfim Parish Council, and the collective pedreira.
Performative Sound Walk “Cartographies of Daily Routes”
From this process, a sound walk also emerged: “Cartographies of Daily Routes”, an immersive auditory experience developed at Campanhã Station in June 2025, resulting from the investigations carried out by the local laboratory. The creation sought to activate an active and critical listening of daily routes, questioning how the female body moves, appears, and interacts with others in and with the city.
This sound walk, produced by PELE, was supported by Infraestruturas de Portugal, STCP – Serviços, and the Bonfim Parish Council.
Throughout all these activities — artistic interventions, international meetings, open workshops, and performative walks — participants engaged in a process of reappropriating and re-signifying public space, promoted the right to the city, and helped open pathways for both symbolic and tangible transformation of urban life.
Artistic Credits
Coordination: Sara Jorge
Artistic Direction: Maria João Mota
Collective Creation: Carla Lourenço, Cristina Duque, Franciene Glória, Irene Monteiro, Isaura Morais, Jacqueline Rezende, Jaqueline Lodi, Mafalda Aires, Mafalda Lourenço, Maria João Mota, Marie Elise Chocroun, Rita Costa, Uxía Hermida
Sound Creation: Inês Lapa
Photography: Paulo Pimenta and Carolina Ribeiro
Video: Carolina Ribeiro
Poetic Activation and Creation: Marta Bernardes
Critical Observation and authorship of the poem “Sou Bicho”: Vanessa Marcos
Special Participation in the Sound Walk: Andrea Freire, Atija Assane, Bianca Carvalho, Lígia Ferro, Manuela Cardoso, Margarita Dontova, Núria Barros, Rapha Gomes, Sara Larrabure
Design: Sérgio Couto
Sound Mixing: Tiago Candal
Production Direction: Carina Moutinho
Executive Production: Tiago Silva and João Soares
Production Support: Fernando Almeida
Communication: Sara Cunha and Carolina Bravo
Support and Partnerships: Bonfim Parish Council, IP – Infraestruturas de Portugal, STCP – Serviços, Metro do Porto, Pedreira
Funding: Creative Europe, Portuguese Republic – Culture | Directorate-General for the Arts
Acknowledgements: To all the people who took part in the Laboratory and the project throughout these months and who left their mark on this collective cartography. Without them — without all of them — we would not have arrived here.
TRANSFEMINA PARTNER INSTITUTIONS
Col·lectiu Punt 6
A non-profit cooperative dedicated to urban planning and architecture, with more than 17 years of local, national, and international experience. They work from an intersectional feminist perspective through community participation and action. They are committed to rethinking domestic, community, and public spaces through a feminist lens, with more than 400 projects carried out across different spheres.
Col·lectiu Punt 6 develops its own methodologies, which are adapted to the context and to the people they work with. They also engage in research, teaching, and training, both for public administrations and non-profit organizations.
Collettivo Amigdala
Amigdala’s work operates on different levels: original artistic creations, public history and anthropology, education for active citizenship, and urban intersections. The collective produces multidisciplinary artistic works with a clear focus on site-specific and community-specific creation methodologies. Amigdala’s productions take the form of performances, public art projects, installations, and soundscapes, always maintaining a strong connection to the place that hosts them. These works are presented in Italy and abroad in festivals, journals, and cultural initiatives. One of its main projects is the Periferico festival, dedicated to the relationships between performing arts, local communities, and the urban fabric.
PELE
PELE is a collective that develops artistic creation projects as spaces for reflection, action, and civic and political participation, fostering processes of individual and collective transformation.
Since 2007, it has sought to keep its work aligned with the urgencies of the territories and communities it engages with, prioritising accessibility and artistic participation across multiple centres. By bringing together diverse audiences, sectors, artistic languages, territories, and partners, PELE generates horizontal decision-making spaces and alternative models of collective creation.