Ten years of Ocupa: Braga once again becomes a stage for artistic creation and sharing

The tenth edition of OCUPA takes place on 5 and 6 December and once again showcases electronic music and digital art, focusing on artists from or residing in the district of Braga. This Friday and Saturday, OCUPA will feature Ana Deus and Marta Abreu, Six Pairs of Consecutive Numbers by Zé Figueiredo, Helena Silva, the trio formed by Rita Silva, Bruno Rodrigues Martins and Diogo Mendes, and a presentation by Clube de Inverno. This edition also features Ponto de Escuta, an installation that brings together sound works by students from the Master's in Media Arts, the installation Campo Gravitacional by the Asteróide Fértil association, and a conversation about the artistic future of Braga with Pedro Lima, Catarina Carvalho Gomes, Sérgio Alves, João Carlos Pinto, and Sara Marita. 

After a week of exchange, sharing and experiences with music and video, Clube de Inverno will make its public presentation on Friday. This year, the club is led by Rui Maia, the face of the Mirror People project and member of X-Wife, and visual artist Mariana Vilanova, who has exhibited at venues such as gnration, Festival Semibreve, the, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado (MNAC) or Galeria Municipal do Porto. 

Ana Deus, lead singer of Três Tristes Tigres, and Marta Abreu, half of Goela Hiante – with Adolfo Luxuria Cabral – have joined forces to present the show Eu fui silêncio (I was silence). They met for the first time in 2022 at the exhibition Mulheres que fazem barulho (Women who make noise) and have since collaborated on this show, which seeks to give a voice to women who have been silenced. They bring together texts by writers such as Natália Correia, Judith Teixeira, Nadia Anjuman and Maria Teresa Horta, and more recently added a poem by Miguel Torga, due to the construction of the Trump Wall and the attacks on the climate and life that this barrier has caused. Eu fui silêncio will be presented at OCUPA on Friday, 5 December at 9:30 p.m. 

On Saturday afternoon, Zé Figueiredo brings Six Pairs of Consecutive Triangle Numbers to Casa Rolão. In addition to founding bands such as Peixe:Avião, Smix Smox Smux and Plano Trifásico, he is also a composer with credits on more than fifteen albums, soundtracks, sound designs, concerts and sound installations. In this show, geometric concepts and algebra are adapted to rhythm and harmony, transforming musical time into a rigorous and fluid organism, multifaceted and in constant transformation. 

Also on Saturday afternoon, but now at gnration, Helena Silva presents her debut album Celeste, released in October this year. This album, which has gradually gained some national prominence in the world of classical music, is an exquisite encounter between acoustic and electronic music. 

The 2025 edition of Ocupa closes with the piece Vultures in a quantum space by the trio formed by Rita Silva, composer and instrumentalist of works such as The Inflationary Epoch and wytai, Bruno Rodrigues Martins, visual artist and member of the Kindergarten Collective, and Diogo Mendes, multidisciplinary artist who has collaborated with a diverse range of artists such as Mira Quebec, Dino D'Santiago, Surma and Branko. In 2023, Rita Silva and Bruno Rodrigues Martins met at the eighth edition of Ocupa. From that encounter, they joined forces to collaborate and create together. They recently joined forces with Diogo Mendes to create this show, which is set to premiere at Ocupa. Vultures in a quantum space is a sensory experience where sound, light and video influence each other, revealing the fragility and transience of presence through an integrated audiovisual performance. 

Before Saturday's concerts, there will also be time for a conversation between five creators: Pedro Lima, winner of the SPA/Antena 2 Composition Award and the Best Classical and Erudite Music Album Award at the 2025 PLAY Awards, Catarina Carvalho Gomes, DJ and designer, Sérgio Alves, one of the mentors of wav.in and the face of the solo project Alcrud3, João Carlos Pinto, resident artist at Casa da Música in 2025, and Sara Marita, composer and performer. Creators from different fields come together to talk about the future of artistic creation in the city, one year after it celebrated the title of Portuguese Capital of Culture. 

The Ocupa exhibition programme features two installations. At gnration, visitors can see Posto de escuta (Listening Post), composed of sound pieces developed by students from the Master's in Media Arts at the University of Minho. Casa Rolão hosts the installation Campo Gravitacional (Gravitational Field) created by Asteróide Fértil.  

Ocupa tickets can be purchased at https://gnration.bol.pt or at the gnration counter. A day ticket costs €5 and a general pass, which gives access to both days, costs €7. The creators' talk and the show Six Pairs of Consecutive Numbers are free, as are the two installations.