ABOUT US
BABEL’s mission is to generate research and learning opportunities in the fields of contemporary art, architecture and environment. BABEL is conceived as a museum without walls and aims to work between cultures and across disciplines. To achieve its goals, BABEL establishes regional and international partnerships with institutions of recognized educational and cultural merit. Therefore a spirit of collaboration, and the creation of fruitful synergies, is essential to the fulfillment of BABEL mission.
Margarida Saraiva
Director & Chief curator - Art
Margarida Saraiva is a researcher, curator and educator working in-between Asia and Europe, arts and cultures.
Presently working as a curator and researcher at the Macau Museum of Art, Saraiva has curated “Representing Women 19th and 20th Centuries - MAM Collection” and co-curated Women Artists - 1st International Biennale of Macau, among others exhibitions and programmes. She is the founder of BABEL – Cultural Organization, where she has initiated projects like Influxus, New Visions and Macau Architecture Promenade (MAP).
Saraiva is a lecturer of Museum Management and Exhibition Design at the Institute of Tourism Studies and at the University of Saint Joseph, both in the Bachelor and Master Degrees in Heritage Management, respectively.
From 2011 to 2013, Saraiva was Head of Education at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto/Portugal), working with institutions such as Tate Modern and Louisiana Museum of Art.
Saraiva is a PhD Student in Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought at the European Graduate School (Switzerland/ Malta), learning from Boris Groys, Achille Mbembe, Judith Butler and other contemporary thinkers. She has completed the course Curating the Contemporary coordinated by Simon Sheikh and offered by Goldsmith University of London at the British School of Rome. Saraiva holds a Master of Arts in European Cultural Planning and Policies by De Montfort University, Leicester (UK), a Post Graduation in Cultural Tourism by the Institute of European Studies of Macau (China). Saraiva attended a Post Graduation in Museum Studies (Portugal) and is Licentiate in History by the Faculty of Humanities of Oporto University.

Tiago Saldanha Quadros
Director & Chief curator - Architecture
Tiago Saldanha Quadros (b. 1977) serves as Chief curator of architecture at BABEL – Cultural Organization. He holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon (2006) and a Major Degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto (2001). He is the author of 24 Obras na Vida de uma Exposição: XANGAI 2010 (Edições Afrontamento, 2012) and Macau Sessions. Dialogues on Architecture and Society (BABEL - Cultural Organization, 2015). He has been a visiting lecturer and guest critic at the University of Saint Joseph and Macau University of Science and Technology, respectively. His research and teaching interests include topics such as memory, identity, architectural theory, post colonialism and Asian studies. Tiago has been recently awarded with the Institute of European Studies of Macau Academic Research Grant 2020. 

Margarida Battaglia Abreu
Production Director

Margarida Battaglia Abreu, Portugal, 1995. She studied Equipment Design at António Arroio and graduated in Fine Arts at ESAD.CR. She did Erasmus at A.B.A.A.Q. in Italy. She also completed her master's degree in Fine Arts at ESAD.CR and finished it in 2019. Since 2010, she has gained performance experience with Amalgama Companhia de Dança. In 2016, she held her first solo exhibition, Corpos (Bodies), at the RA100Arroios gallery in Lisbon. In 2017, she participated in the ArteNatura'17 artistic residency and was a finalist in the CDAP Young Art Prize Competition. She participated in several Electricidade Estética exhibitions in 2017, 18 and 19. In 2019, she made an interactive installation to be handled by dancers in the BodySkyline dance show at the Fringe Festival in Macau. In 2020, she took part in the Let Us Flop exhibition (Duplex, Lisbon) and in A casa é a cidade é a casa é a cidade (Liminare Gallery, Lisbon) and participated in Ataráxia, an artistic residency with an exhibition (Espaço Moinho, Caldas da Rainha) at the invitation of Eletricidade Estética. In 2021, she took part in the Nascentes project, an artistic residency with an exhibition (Serra Espaço Cultural, Fontes); he exhibits Fragmented Pipe, with the KORPER project (Galeria Espaço da Concas in Caldas da Rainha). In 2022, he began producing in a residency and artistic research project in Alcobaça, Central-Periférica, and that same year, she exhibited in the exhibition Poste Video-Arte (Galeria Extéril, Porto). In 2023, she held the solo exhibition "I thought I suspended time, but in the end I only suspended myself" in a factory on the outskirts of Alcobaça - Fábrica Barracha, Atelier Conceição Cabral Arte and Glass. 

José Drummond
Curator - Contemporary Art and Intermedia (Consultant)
José Drummond is a Portuguese artist currently based in Shanghai. His research-driven practice is an enigmatic and poetic investigation of the space in-between with questions of displacement, transience, impermanence, and fragmented identities. Making use of a heterogeneous formal language where Installation, Video, Lights, Photography, Painting, and curatorial initiatives intersect, Drummond’s process-based hybrid works defy classifications and artistic genres. His works are made with a strong experimental aspect, in the sense of permanently question the relationship, sometimes paradoxical and disruptive with the viewer. He is the director of VAFA - international video art festival, in Macau, and holds an MFA in Creative Practice from the University of Plymouth (UK) and the Transart Institute in New York (USA). He is a 2016 Sovereign Asian Art Award finalist and received scholarships from the Orient Foundation (Portugal), the National Centre of Culture (Portugal), and the Cultural Institute of Macau. He represented Portugal at the Valencia Biennale. As a curator he explores the bridges between China and the West with “Where is China?”, presented simultaneously at the Millennium Museum in Beijing and the Orient Museum in Lisbon, being his most significant contribution.
Tomé Quadros
Curator - Expanded Cinema (Consultant)

Tomé Quadros (Porto, Portugal, 1979) holds a PhD degree with summa cum laude 19/20 in Science and Technology of the Arts, specializing in the field of Cinema and Audio-visual, at the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University; thesis entitled Between Documentary and Fiction: Contemporary Chinese and Danish Cinemas.

Since 2017, Tomé Quadros is an Adjunct Professor at College of Arts and Design, ESAD (Matosinhos, Portugal), and research unit coordinator at research centre in Arts and Design - ESAD-IDEA (Matosinhos, Portugal). As well as Visiting Adjunct Professor at Higher School for Education - ESE, Viana do Castelo Polytechnic Institute - IPVC (Viana do Castelo - Portugal); and Visiting Academic at Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Saint Joseph (Special Administrative Region of Macau - China).

His research has been addressed with special emphasis on conferences and presentations in Serralves Foundation (2012); Black & White Audio-visual Festival, Oporto (2013); FilmAsia - II Asian Conference on Film, Waseda University, Osaka (2014); Lisbon Consortium (Lisbon) and School of Arts (Oporto), Catholic University of Portugal, (2014 -2016); The Real and Reality, Centre for Art and Media, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2016); International Conference on Design & Digital Communication, DIGICOM, Barcelos (2019); Porto Design Biennale, PDB 2019, Matosinhos - Porto (2019). Early 2016, the book chapter entitled  “Social Transformation in the Eyes of Contemporary Chinese Cinema and Dogme 95” co-authored by Tomé Quadros and Émilie Tran, was published in an edited book by Susana Gonçalves and Suzanne Majhanovich entitled “(Inter)cultural Dialogue Through Arts and Media”, published by Sense Publishers (The Netherlands).

Tomé Quadros has directed several feature and documentary films, and TV programs. Namely, in 2016 and 2006 the projects entitled Macau Reframe and Nam Van Square were exhibited and produced for Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (SZHKB): Reliving the City - 6th Edition, and Venice Biennale Architecture 10th edition, respectively.




Bernardo Amaral
Curator - Architecture (Consultant)
Bernardo Amaral Graduated in Architecture from the University of Porto in 2005. From 2003 to 2010 he has collaborated in diverse architecture offices in Porto, Paris and Macao. Based in Porto since 2008, Bernardo has been responsible for several refurbishment of 19th century townhouses in the city’s historical center, such as Casa do Pinheiro, which received an honorable mention of Joao de Almada prize in 2012. Among other projects, the refurbishment of a working-class housing block in São Vitor (2015) has been object of academic studies and published in specialized books or journals. Parallel to the architecture practice (BAAU), Bernardo was invited tutor in several workshops and lectures, questioning the production relationship between design and building process, as well as the role of the architectural practice in social contexts. In 2015 Bernardo enrolled in a PhD Architecture Program in the University of Coimbra and has been developing a research thesis on the production relationships and working methodologies of current architecture practices, that reclaim a social and political engagement.
Wilson Esperança
Exhibition Designer

Wilson Esperança is a product designer. He completed his degree in Industrial Design at the University of Beira Interior in Covilhã in 2013. In 2017, he attended the Master's in Product Design at ESAD.cr. He explores the intersection between design and gastronomy, using various techniques such as ceramics, carpentry, blown glass and metalworking. He is the author of several pieces that offer the user new ways of experiencing raw and cooked food, by imposing certain gestures that play with altering certain sensory perceptions. 

In 2022, he began collaborating with central-periférica de Alcobaça, a project of Babel Associação Cultural, as an exhibition and gallery designer. 


Contributors
Barbara Miranda Ramos (Production Assistant), Tiago Rocha (video), Patricia Faustino (Photography), Ray Granlund (English Editor), Cristiana Soares (Translations), Sandy Chan (Public Relations and Media), Sara Souza (Executive Producer: Lisbon and Porto), Victoria Lei (Executive Producer: Macau, Beijing, Hong Kong), Sofia Silva (Assistant Producer), Suraphon Kanyukt (Assistant Producer), Su Teng Lei (internship)

(Updated June 2024)

Become a Contributor
Become a Contributor
If you wish to be part of our team, please email your CV and letter of motivation to babel-culturalorganization@gmail.com
BABEL’s mission is to generate research and learning opportunities in the fields of architecture, art and environment. By “learning opportunities” we mean opportunities for an ongoing, voluntary, self-motivated pursuit of knowledge and new ways of thinking, for either personal or professional reasons, for people of all ages (seniors, adults, teenagers and children).
We believe that learning enhances social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development and self-sustainability, rather than competitiveness or employability.
As a museum without walls, BABEL follows a few guiding principles: educational excellence, informal learning, love, social commitment, innovation and experimentation, motivation, flexibility, evaluation, interdisciplinary approach, creativity and transparency.
Educational excellence
All of our programmes are developed under the most rigorous standards of quality.
Informal Learning
We always bear in mind the informal learning context in which we operate and the many possibilities that it offers, including those that support formal education and social and cultural inclusion.
Love
While critical thinking is an important skill, what our teachers teach is the experience of discovery, enthusiasm and a love of learning. The really great teachers are lovers of learning.

Social commitment
Any individual, regardless of their educational level or personal circumstances, has something to contribute to the process of learning. For that reason, we take an integrative approach in order to make artistic, environmental and architectural knowledge accessible to everyone.

Innovation and experimentation
We aim to explore new educational approaches, searching for innovation through constant experimentation. We conceive of our programs and activities as a laboratory for the future.

Motivation
One of our missions is to help everyone perceive art, environment and architecture as something of their own and as a place to interact and intervene.
Flexibility
We use a flexible heterogeneous methodology which gathers and harmonizes resources and strategies from heterogeneous sources.
Evaluation
To us, evaluation is mainly a tool to explore new development possibilities and new activities and programs, as well as a tool to track new audiences and identify their needs. Qualitative evaluation should take precedence over quantitative evaluation.
Interdisciplinary approach
Our core subjects belong to the contemporary world, its art, architecture and environment. Therefore, other disciplines like literature, cinema and civic and social education play a very important role in our programmes. Our interest in an interdisciplinary approach bolsters the creation of multidisciplinary teams for the design and development of activities, incorporating, as much as possible, professionals from various fields.
Creativity
All of our actions, from conception and development to the implementation of our programs, activities and resources, have a strong creative element to them.

Learning
Education must be distinguished from the transmission of knowledge and bestowing of credentials. Education is not the same as indoctrinating people with values or beliefs. It is about opening up to the larger possibilities of the world as it is.
Collaborations
Collaborations are essential in the way we work as a site for experimental development in which the unpredictable is welcome.

Mar 28, 2021
BABEL launches new program of Art in the School
Aug 20, 2020
An exhibition by Rui Rasquinho
Oct 03, 2019
The Portuguese edition of Macau Sessions. Dialogues on Architecture and Macau
Oct 09, 2018
Nuno Cera - Artist in Residence
Nov 30, 2018
Nuno Cera interviewed by Margarida Saraiva for ARTE CAPITAL
Apr 26, 2019
The exhibition Blur City opens at Casa Garden
May 03, 2018
I upload therefore I exist by Weng Wong Io opens at Casa Garden
May 08, 2018
I upload therefore I exist by Weng Wong Io opens at Casa Garden
Mar 21, 2018
The Chinese art market in discussion
Mar 04, 2017
An interview to BABEL founder
Feb 17, 2017
A guided visit by José Drummond
Jan 20, 2017
An exhibition by José Drummond
Jan 15, 2016
MAP reviewed
Dec 16, 2015
Babel takes Macau Sessions. Dialogues on Architecture and Society to Shenzhen
Dec 04, 2015
BABEL at the Shenzhen Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism
Oct 30, 2015
Bodies in Urban Spaces fitting bodies into the city
Oct 26, 2015
LikeArchitects in the Portuguese Council Residency
Oct 10, 2015
Macau Architecture Promenade featured by ArchDaily
Oct 10, 2015
Macau Architecture Promenade - MAP
Oct 08, 2015
In between this and something else
Oct 07, 2015
Dialogues to share knowledge about the city, insight's into the future
Jun 25, 2015
José Drummond and Peng Yun at Casa Garden
Oct 12, 2015
Municipal Architecture in Debate
Nov 30, 2014
How to support Macau contemporary artists?
Oct 13, 2014
Architecture
Nov 05, 2020
Macau Daily Times
Nov 27, 2013
An intercultural experience in art and ideas
Aug 22, 2014
Portuguese curators discuss Memory and Archive
Jun 01, 2013
BABEL launches Family day at Cheoc Van