Manifestos exist in art and politics, in philosophy and sociology. They usually offer analyses of the existing world and outline proposals for the future, demand radical change or lament the utopias that still haven’t arrived, sometimes playfully, sometimes polemically. Some that use aggressive populism as their weapon. Others that try to calmly express the urgency of their issues for the open-minded reader. Isabel Costa’s production is interested in the latter category. Inspired by a project by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, she has examined texts written after the year 2000 and put them together in a performance that the audience experiences in small groups as they walk through an empty building. There, the audience encounters seven performers one after the other, who recite extracts from seven manifestos: in an intimate situation and without the usual trappings of political activism, so that it is left up to the encounter and the person listening to see what resonates.


directing Isabel Costa / Os Possessos
text Isabel Costa after Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, Grupo Krisis, Isabelle Stengers, The Care Collective, Nina Donovan, Bram Buscher and Robert Fletcher, Franco Berardi
collaboration in dramaturgy Daniel Gamito Marques
costume Joana Subtil, Vera Salminen
photos Leonor Fonseca, Telmo Pereira (portrait Isabel Costa)

production Leonardo Garibaldi
coproduction Caixa Geral de Depósitos Foundation Culturgest, Walk&Talk

with the support from CM Lisboa e Polo Cultural Gaivotas, Boavista
the residency developing “Isabel Costa’s MANIFESTOS PARA DEPOIS DO FIM DO MUNDO for international audiences” is supported by European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists – EFFEA, an initiative of the European Festivals Association (EFA), co-funded by the European Union

in collaboration with Spazio A for the Italian premiere at POLIS 2025


Isabel Costa, b. 1992, is a Portuguese actress working in theatre and cinema. Since 2014, a member of the Lisbon theatre collective, Os Possessos. She has been continually developing the manifestos project since 2019, with a focus on the theatrical encounter between performers and audience. It is her third production as a director. The performances have been enabled by the EFFEA-Discovery programme, an initiative of the European Festivals Association (EFA), co-funded by the European Union.