The transposition of artisanal traditions in the artwork of Catarina Branco

What is it about?

The article provides the contextualization of Catarina Branco’s work through a brief introduction to the history of the art of papercutting in the Azores, as the means of expression used by the artist and its intrinsic connection with the memories of the place and the experiences of women who are part of the local material culture. Then, taking Catarina Branco’s exhibitions Alminhas, 2013 (Figures 3–5), and Fez-se Luz (Light Was Made), 2012 (Figures 6–11), as a start- ing point, the article analyses the way in which craft techniques are interwoven through memory with the senses of places, and the way in which this memory, linked to the land and the gesture of making, fuels the critical questioning of the notion of cultural purity and the disembodied vision of the western male gaze.

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Why is it important?

I argue that these works can be seen as a political gesture, which highlights the past of women who lived in anonymity, simultaneously preserving and renewing traditional crafts that are dying out while also deconstructing the false dichotomy between the manual and the intellectual or spiritual. The act of papercutting gives physical form to the experiences of Azorean women, while at the same time addressing questions relevant to the human condition, including migration and the eternal search for transcendence.

Perspectives