Pop culture, social media and our society bombard us with mystified images of love as an all-consuming, uncontrollable and incomprehensible passion. Sacrifice, dependence, jealousy and possessiveness are presented as the very proof of the intensity of lovers’ feelings.

However, if we look a little more critically, this is a vision of love that romanticizes and celebrates destructive behaviours towards others and ourselves, and also mirrors the multiple relations of power and oppression that run through our society.

In this open discussion, Valerie Reding, accompanied by William Cardoso and Jen Lopes Santos, invite you to reflect collectively on the following questions:

• What is love?
• How do we reproduce and recognise the abuse of power within interpersonal and intimate relationships?
• How can we learn to exist together with kindness, courage, respect, responsibility and mutual support, without fear and in love and freedom?