Livraria Lello—widely regarded as one of the world’s most iconic bookshops—has announced a major new collaboration with Ai Weiwei, launching during its international literary and cultural festival BABELL (24–29 June 2026).
The multi-layered project arrives at a moment when the pressure on books, free thought and expression is intensifying globally. With more than 10,000 recorded cases of book censorship in North American schools in the past two years alone, the initiative asks a direct question: what happens when ideas themselves begin to be banned?
At the centre of the project is a three-part intervention by Ai Weiwei spanning an artwork, a publication, and a new publishing series—each addressing censorship not as abstraction, but as lived reality.
Livraria Lello has long positioned the book as more than an object. In 2015, responding to the pressures of mass tourism, the bookshop introduced an admission system redeemable against books—effectively transforming reading into a form of cultural currency. That model now expands outward into the city.
“The book saved Livraria Lello. Now, it can help transform the city – not as a symbol, but as a tool for access, participation and freedom,”
says Francisca Pedro Pinto, Brand Director.
A blank page as protest
Unveiled on 24 June, Ai Weiwei’s new work A4 takes the form of a large-scale sculptural installation built around a simple yet loaded symbol: a blank sheet of paper. Referencing recent protests where demonstrators held empty pages when speech was restricted, the work turns silence into a visible language.
The piece operates between absence and presence—where what cannot be said becomes the work’s central force.
“The threat to authoritarian regimes lies not only in visible protest, but in the idea that people can think and express themselves freely,”
Ai Weiwei notes.
Restoring erased voices
The project also extends into publishing, with Livraria Lello releasing a new volume of poems by Ai Qing—Ai Weiwei’s father—whose work was once suppressed under political persecution. Featuring a foreword by Weiwei, the publication reintroduces a voice historically silenced.
Alongside this, a new publishing collection dedicated to censored books will launch, with covers designed by Ai Weiwei, positioning the book itself as both cultural object and political surface.
BABELL: books as access
The collaboration sits within the wider framework of BABELL, a new city-wide event transforming Porto into a hub for literature, art and critical debate. Writers including Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie will participate in a programme focused on freedom of expression and contemporary thought.
In keeping with Livraria Lello’s ethos, access to BABELL events comes with a simple condition: visitors purchase a book from any local bookshop. Reading becomes the entry point, and the book a shared cultural currency.
Announced on World Book Day, the initiative reinforces a clear position: the book is not neutral—and never has been.
With Ai Weiwei’s intervention, Livraria Lello extends that idea into a broader cultural proposition, where books operate not just as objects of knowledge, but as tools of resistance, participation and freedom.
BABELL 2026, 24th -30th June livrarialello.pt/en/babell
