A bittersweet city.
2020-2025

Pastel de nada is an artistic and photographic project born from the desire to explore the contradictions I have experienced and observed over the past five years in Lisbon—a city I love deeply and where I live as a foreign resident. As in many other European cities, social and economic changes here have accelerated at an increasing pace, bringing processes such as gentrification, overtourism, social inequality, racism, and a dramatic housing crisis into sharp and tangible focus.
The title comes from a telling slip of the tongue: during a conversation on the steps of a hidden staircase in Alfama, a friend mistakenly referred to the famous Lisbon pastry “Pastel de nata” as “Pastel de nada” — a “pastry of nothing”. Unintentionally, it perfectly captures the spirit of the project. Behind the postcard-perfect imagery, the city risks becoming an increasingly hollow showcase: glossy, but uninhabited.
The project takes shape through a series of seemingly conventional tourist postcards, which are in fact profoundly contradictory. Each image is paired with an ironic promotional slogan that mimics the language of tourist marketing. On the reverse, however, a short explanation reveals the hidden, rawer and more bitter side of the city.
For example, a photograph of the Graça convent and the nearby former military barracks—abandoned for years but now set to become a luxury hotel—is accompanied by the slogan: “Sleep in the heart of Lisbon, where luxury meets spirituality.” A seductive invitation promising spiritual serenity and timeless elegance. On the back of the postcard, however, we read about the mobilisation of local residents who opposed the building’s transformation into a five-star hotel and instead proposed returning it to the community as a space for housing, culture, and social use.
The project also addresses, always with an ironic and critical tone, other emblematic aspects of urban change: the gentrification of historic neighbourhoods into tourist accommodation, the steady disappearance of local shops, the invasion of tuk-tuks and e-scooters, and the increasingly visible presence of unhoused people. There are also references to systemic racism and the erasure of colonial memory, as well as the way Lisbon icons—such as tram 28, the sunsets, and the azulejos—are reduced to mere postcard images, stripped of their cultural and historical meaning.
Pastel de nada emerges from my everyday walks, weaving between familiar streets and critical perspectives. In addition to the postcards, I am also experimenting with other media inspired by the imagery of tourism, always with the aim of sparking reflection, exposing inequalities, and offering an alternative narrative of the city.
Through irony and artistic insight, the project invites us not to settle for the postcard image, but to question urban complexity, political decisions, and the impact these have on the social fabric.

Because Lisbon is not just Pastel de nata.
It is also, and increasingly, Pastel de nada.

© 2015-2025 Djamila Baroni
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