Our name is Museus e Monumentos de Portugal - Museus and Monuments of Portugal. Our name contains “and”, a conjunction joining two or more words. Joining means gathering, relating, activating, paying attention and giving importance. Our name contains also the word Portugal, but Portugal is not an abstraction. It's a territory: from the Trás-os-Montes province in the north-east to the Sagres promontory in the south-east. We are a country-museum open to the public.

We embrace a myriad of particular traits. Of the almost forty spaces under our custody, five are monuments classified by UNESCO as World Heritage, sixteen are national museums, and all of them stand out on their own. Together, they form a constellation of knowledge and wonder. The power of art and heritage is not distant or utopian. It has to be there in our daily lives.

We believe that no museum, monument or palace is an island, a stronghold of loneliness and non communicability. We like to think that we are an archipelago, islands united by proximity and the same geological origin. We walk the same land, watch the same stars and share a common identity.

We are duly assisted in this journey by the José de Figueiredo Laboratory, the Photographic Documentation Archive and the Portuguese Network of Museums. They provide us with resources, memory and scale. We were entrusted with the keys to the Castle of Guimarães, and we keep growing the State Contemporary Art Collection. We are a force of the past and we take steps forward. Our legacy is the future. We are not afraid of paradox.

We know that museums, monuments and palaces are places of contemplation and silence. But stones speak, collections share opinions and national and international visitors want qualified experiences. We want to hear new noises amidst the silence of museums.

We push for democratisation as regards access to culture, for inclusion, educational accountability, and the diversification of audiences. We shall materialize these goals through more than just words.

Museus e Monumentos de Portugal is a majestic plural. A plural of majesty is also plural of modesty: when we say we, we mean I, you, he and she. We rely on the complicity of all professionals in the field of culture who now join us, true ambassadors of our mission and values. We rely on collective intelligence.

Our story remains a never-ending story. Our story is to be continued.