Who we are

Cultura no Muro

We’re a non-profit cultural association from Parede, on the outskirts of Lisbon, and we made this site. The outskirts don’t have to be quiet suburbs.

Our story

Cultura no Muro was born in 2011, out of meetings between a group of friends inspired by the occupation of Rossio Square in Lisbon. Since then, we’ve been bringing culture, debate and social awareness to Parede and the towns around it, far from the city centre where the cultural calendar usually happens.

With a €300,000 project that won Cascais’s participatory budget, we helped reopen the Sociedade Musical União Paredense (SMUP), which had been closed for eight years. We worked there for almost fifteen years, and two more participatory-budget projects improved the building.

What we do

We organise film screenings, debates, concerts, festivals, workshops and activities for children, almost always with free entry or a pay-what-you-can donation. But for us culture is a starting point: a reason for people to meet, talk about what worries them and decide together what to do.

We believe a place only changes when the people who live there take part. That’s why we take proposals to the participatory budget, work with social housing neighbourhoods, make room for those who are rarely heard, and help other collectives organise and promote their activities.

Everything is done by volunteers, from production to design, from the accounts to the photography. Anyone can join, suggest an activity or lend a hand.

Evicted from the space we helped reopen

We know what an eviction is, too. In April 2025, the SMUP gave us an ultimatum to leave the room we worked from, and we launched a public petition to stay. The new board didn’t renew our agreement, the lock on our room was changed without notice and, on 7 August 2025, we had to leave.

Since then we’ve worked as a nomadic association, in spaces that host us and alongside other associations and collectives. Without a roof, but not standing still.

In 2026, the tents went back up in the squares, this time for housing. That’s why we made this site: to bring together, in one place, the protests, the figures and the demands of everyone fighting for a home to live in.

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