Entrance to Livraria Lello
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AI WEIWEI
Livraria Lello presents an exhibition dedicated to freedom, curated around the work of Ai Weiwei, marking the opening of BABELL.
At its center is A4, an installation commissioned from the artist. Starting from a blank sheet of paper—both a space of possibility and a symbol of silence—the work reflects on the limits of expression and the power of thought.
From this piece, the exhibition unfolds as a journey through freedom, language, and creation, in direct dialogue with the space of the bookshop and with the book as a place of expression.
Between memory and the present, a legacy resonates: the word as a form of resistance.
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BABELL
Since 1906, Livraria Lello has believed that the book is a technology of freedom. When it faced moments of crisis—such as in 2015, when fewer than 10% of visitors were buying books—it was, precisely, the book that saved it. If the book could transform the destiny of the bookshop, it can also help transform the destiny of the city. BABELL is born from this foundation.
In a way that is unprecedented worldwide, and inspired by the Livraria Lello Porto model, access to BABELL sessions is granted through the purchase of books in the city’s bookshops. The programme features some of the most relevant names in contemporary literature, such as Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Nobel Prize in Literature laureates Olga Tokarczuk and László Krasznahorkai.
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How to visit
Livraria Lello
To mark its 120th anniversary, Livraria Lello presents an artistic installation in its shop windows that translates, in form and material, its vision of culture as a force for transformation in the region.
Inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and the famous passage in which Marco Polo replies to Kublai Khan that ‘it is not the stones that support the bridge, but the arch they form’, the installation offers a symbolic interpretation of Livraria Lello's own history.
.png "Livraria Lello in Porto hosts a new installation by Ai Weiwei to mark the launch of BABELL")
 тАУ grande.jpeg "Babell: The Literary Festival That Promises to Make Porto the World Capital of Books")
