Holiday Station leads January at the Portuguese Language Museum

Holiday Station leads January at the Portuguese Language Museum with workshops, special visits and activities linked to the FUNK exhibition.

January opens with a packed cultural schedule at the Portuguese Language Museum, in São Paulo. Starting on Saturday, 10 January, the Museum launches Holiday Station, a program with activities connected to the temporary exhibition FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade, as well as special visits and actions led by the Education Team. Housed in the historic Estação da Luz building, the Museum is an institution of the São Paulo State Secretariat of Culture, Economy and Creative Industries.

Holiday Station explores urban cultures

Led by artist-educators from the Agbalá Conta collective, the January 2026 edition of Holiday Station will focus on urban cultures. From Tuesday to Sunday, visitors can join rhyme, graffiti and urban dance workshops, as well as sessions on creating street posters (lambes), body painting and adornments, always at four times: 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Traditional games such as jump rope, “mãe da rua”, “barra manteiga” and hopscotch will also be available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., inviting children and families to play and occupy the Museum’s spaces. No prior registration is required for any Holiday Station activities: visitors only need to arrive and join the workshops or start playing.

On Saturdays, the Holiday Station schedule gains special actions. On 10 January, the Projeto Giz art initiative presents the intervention and experience Pintar de Giz from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with artists Rafa Black and Tinho. On 17 January, at 11 a.m., the Grupo Diladim performs the show Requebrando, bringing urban dance and body expression to the Museum.

Educational visits and ancestry

The Education Team at the Portuguese Language Museum has prepared two special tours for January. On 17 January, at 1 p.m., the visit titled Joias de Crioula uses the main exhibition collection to explore representations of Black women in the 18th and 19th centuries, highlighting forms of resistance expressed through symbols, objects and visual marks.

On 31 January, also at 1 p.m., the special visit Movimentos de Ancestralidade connects contents from the main exhibition to the temporary show FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade. In this activity, educators focus on works that address Afro-diasporic spiritualities, showing how language and culture unfold in different artistic and social expressions.

Throughout January, the Museum also maintains its regular guided tours with educators to the main exhibition (on Saturdays and Sundays, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.) and to the Estação da Luz building (on Saturdays and Sundays, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.). All guided visits are free, with groups formed 15 minutes before the start, at Patio A, near the ticket office.

Reading sessions and Family Station

On Sundays, visitors can also enjoy the Family Station program. In these sessions, the Education Team reads a children’s book and proposes an activity related to the story, reinforcing the role of the Portuguese Language Museum as a space for reading, listening and family encounters.

The books selected for January are Fevereiro, by Carol Fernandes (11 January); De Passinho em Passinho: um livro para dançar e sonhar, by Otávio Júnior (18 January); and O mundo no black power de Tayó, by Kiusam de Oliveira (25 January). The Family Station activities take place on the Museum’s second floor, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Exhibitions: Portuguese language and funk

Visitors to the Portuguese Language Museum in January can see both the main exhibition and the temporary show FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade. Together, they highlight the diversity of the Portuguese language and the power of funk as a cultural and linguistic movement.

With audiovisual and interactive experiences, the main exhibition presents the variety of Portuguese spoken in Brazil. A key highlight is the Português do Brasil timeline, which traces the history of the language from the Roman Empire to the present, explaining how Indigenous and African languages helped shape Brazilian Portuguese.

Another landmark is the immersive installation Praça da Língua, where texts from Portuguese-language literature by authors such as Graciliano Ramos and Machado de Assis are projected onto the ceiling, accompanied by the voices of artists like Maria Bethânia, Chico Buarque and Tom Zé. The environment turns language into a collective sensory experience.

Featuring 473 works, including paintings, photographs and audiovisual records, the temporary exhibition FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade highlights the traces of this cultural movement, which reshapes ways of speaking, dressing and creating. Conceived by the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), the show is curated by Taísa Machado, Dom Filó, Amanda Bonan, Marcelo Campos and Renata Prado.

The exhibition traces the path of funk from the influence of African American music and the black and soul dance parties of the 1960s and 1970s to its consolidation in Rio de Janeiro, with its own features, and later in São Paulo, where it also developed local traits. The São Paulo version of the project includes works by artists such as Tami Silva, Brenda Nicole and Rafa Black, who focus on funk in the Baixada Santista region and in the state capital.

Service

Holiday Station

From 10 to 25 January

Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Free admission

Main exhibition and FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade

Tuesday to Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (visitors may remain until 6 p.m.)

Tickets: R$ 25 (full); R$ 12.50 (half)

Free for children up to 7 years old

Free on Saturdays and Sundays

Access through Gate A

Tickets sold at the ticket office and online: https://bileto.sympla.com.br/event/90834/d/299723

Age rating for the exhibition FUNK: Um grito de ousadia e liberdade: 14 years