“Glossolalia” is the new exhibition at the School of Arts

The School of Arts presents Glossolalia, an artistic creation project by Joana Patrão and Tiago Madaleno, curated by Nuno Crespo, which will be open to the public from 15 January to 21 February 2026 at the Católica Art Center in Porto.

The opening will take place on 15 January at 6:30 p.m., with free admission.

Glossolalia is based on a fictional premise: the story of a couple who, unable to share a home, decide to pursue the idea of home through a road journey, moving between the monotony of the road and moments of synesthetic ecstasy. Through moving images and soundscapes, the work explores time, narrative and shared experience, offering the audience a fragmented and intense imaginary journey.

The term “glossolalia” - often associated with a form of speech in unknown languages - is reinterpreted here as a metaphor for the states of communication and incommunicability that emerge in human experience. The installation establishes a dialogue between cinematic language and sound material, inviting visitors to engage in a sensitive attentiveness to the relationship between sound, image and memory.

According to Nuno Crespo, Director of the School of Arts and curator of the exhibition, “Glossolalia is constructed as a territory of listening and suspension, where image and sound do not seek to explain, but rather to provoke states of attention and displacement. The work invites the viewer into an experience that is closer to an inner journey than to a linear narrative, questioning the very idea of communication, home and sharing.”

The artistic practices of Joana Patrão and Tiago Madaleno converge in this project. Tiago Madaleno, a Portuguese artist with a background in Fine Arts whose practice spans painting, video and performance, has presented works that reflect on the construction of fictional worlds and the role of image and time in human experience. Joana Patrão has developed projects exploring presence, the body and the relationships between space, time and materiality, often crossing different artistic media. As a duo, they have been working on the project Glossolalia, drawing on the universe of road movies and cinema to reflect on the representation of the idea of a couple through the linguistic and material properties of different media.

The exhibition Glossolalia will be open to the public at the Exhibition Room of the School of Arts of Universidade Católica Portuguesa until 21 February 2026. The Exhibition Room is part of the Católica Art Center, which integrates the Portuguese Contemporary Art Network at national level. In addition to the Exhibition Room, the Católica Art Center also includes two further spaces: the Ilídio Pinho Auditorium, which hosts weekly film programming and meetings with artists; and the Blackbox, more dedicated to the performing arts.

Exhibition details

Exhibition: Glossolalia
Artists: Joana Patrão and Tiago Madaleno
Curator: Nuno Crespo
Opening: 15 January 2026, 6:30 p.m.
On view: 15 January to 21 February 2026
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Admission: Free

Venue: Exhibition Room, School of Arts
Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Porto
Rua de Diogo Botelho, 1327, 4169-005 Porto

More information: About | School of Arts