The stage of international culture moves to Porto, where the famous pop star Dua Lipa, in collaboration with the historic Livraria Lello, officially inaugurated the Manifesto Library. This new permanent space, located within the cultural auditorium of the charming Portuguese bookshop, welcomes an initial collection of 100 carefully selected literary works.
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What can you find inside the Manifesto Library
The project represents the first physical extension of Service95, the global publishing platform and book club founded by the British artist in 2022 to stimulate cultural debate and give voice to forgotten or repressed narratives. Far from being a simple dusty archive, the Manifesto Library presents itself as a true political and social manifesto. Inside there are censored volumes, banned from school curricula or withdrawn from public libraries in various corners of the planet in an attempt to stem their spread.
This selection is structured around four major thematic lines designed to shake the consciences of visitors: power, control, voice and memory. The section dedicated to Candies analyzes who wields influence in the world through texts such as The second sex by Simone de Beauvoir e 1984 by George Orwell. The area of Check maps the mechanisms of propaganda and surveillance by hosting The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and the writings of Ai Weiwei. The category Voice amplifies historically excluded perspectives by including The color purple by Alice Walker and the stories of Ocean Vuong, while the section Memory fights the oblivion of regimes and wars with volume Patriot by Alexei Navalny and the works of Olga Tokarczuk.
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JK Rowling’s touch of magic among the neo-gothic shelves
The choice of this setting is not at all random: the centenary building on Rua das Carmelitas attracts over a million tourists every year, fascinated by timeless neo-Gothic architecture and a global pop legend. And among the many who were fascinated, there is one in particular. In the early 1990s, a young and then-unknown English teacher named JK Rowling lived in Porto, regularly frequenting the city’s bookshops and cafés as she wrote the first drafts of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
The visual impact of that place was indelibly imprinted in the author’s mind, becoming the main source of inspiration for the architecture of the Hogwarts school of magic and for the shops of the famous Diagon Alley. The majestic monumental staircase with red steps that forks in the center of the room, the imposing dark wood decorations and the spectacular glass window on the ceiling almost perfectly recall the moving passages and the mysterious atmosphere of the famous magician’s novels. Even the name of the school’s evil co-founder, Salazar Slytherin, comes directly from the Portuguese dictator António Salazar.
When celebrities redefine contemporary culture
With the opening of this collection, Dua Lipa’s project takes a radical evolutionary leap, transforming a virtual community born on a screen into a tangible cultural presence. Originally born as a personal newsletter to collect cultural advice, interviews and reflections on civil rights, the Service95 platform now expands its boundaries beyond digital. The selection of the Manifesto Library is in fact destined to evolve over time, welcoming future monthly titles recommended by the singer’s book club.
The initiative aims to redefine the role of celebrities in the contemporary publishing market, going beyond the model historically traced by figures such as Oprah Winfrey and other international stars. The aim declared by the promoters is to stimulate critical thinking and open discussion, offering readers the tools to interpret contemporary systems of power. Access to the structure is guaranteed by an entrance system convertible into the purchase of books, transforming the historic tourist destination into an active cultural engine aimed at preserving the stories that someone in the world has tried to censor or erase.
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