Rio is constantly seeking to grow, learn and adapt, but in order to do this, it must maintain a Contemporary focus, by keeping a firm eye on the present moment, locating within it absences, contradictions, discordance, and potentialities for progress and change. In his essay, 'What is the Contemporary?' Giorgio Agambem writes, 'To perceive, in the darkness of the present, a light that strives to reach us but cannot - that is what it means to be contemporary'.

There are no shortage of brilliant contemporary writers and thinkers in Rio, constantly interrogating the present moment as part of a wider search for a brighter future. These thinkers are represented in a number of cultural centers which have a predilection for the contemporary.