EN
FR 
Mémoire de l’Avenir
A non-political, non-religious association guided by its ethical charter,
using arts and culture as tools for dialogue and understanding.
FIO – Ana Isabel Freitas
The Intangible Thread – Gesture, Trace, Memory
FIO !
WEAVE, LAYER & REVEAL | TISSER, SUPERPOSER & RÉVÉLER | TECER, SOBREPÔR & REVELAR
ANA ISABEL FREITAS
© Ana Isabel Freitas
FREE
ADMISSION
OPENING
12 September 2025
PRESS
12H30
PUBLIC
19PM-9PM
PERFORMANCE
20H
GALLERY VISITS
OPEN TO THE
GENERAL PUBLIC
Thursday – Saturday
1PM-7PM
OR
BY APPOINTMENT
VERNISSAGE
12 September 2025 | 7–9 PM
– LIVE PERFORMANCE –
the actors and musicians of
Compagnie Cá e Lá
-Festival Parfums of Lisbonne | 8 PM
Scroll Down for Details
Private Evening
– Performance – Happening –
September 11, 2025 — 7 PM
Limited to 15 participants
GUEST ARTIST
Nuno Fidalgo
for Details + reservation – Scroll Down
12 September – 11 October 2025
Mémoire de l’Avenir (MDA) / Humanities, Arts and Society (HAS)
Host
Ana Isabel Freitas
with
FIO – The Intangible Thread: Gesture, Trace, Memory
WEAVE, LAYER & REVEAL | TISSER, SUPERPOSER & RÉVÉLER | TECER, SOBREPÔR & REVELAR
FIO centers on the materiality of memories,
on inherited gestures,
and on the imprints left by time.
Through painting, textile, video performance, and installation,
Ana Isabel Freitas explores the invisible connections between
the moving body, time, and memory —
between the individual and the collective,
between material and oblivion.
© Ana Isabel Freitas
ABOUT
INTANGIBLE THREAD – GESTURE, TRACE, MEMORY
FIO INTANGÍVEL – GESTO, TRAÇO, MEMÓRIA
unfolds in three movements:
Gesture, where action leaves its immediate trace;
Trace, where memory anchors itself in the visible and the erased;
Memory, where narrative is reconstructed, woven from archives, voices, and accumulated materials.
From the landscapes of the Douro to embroidered family textiles,
from performative installations to moving images,
each work questions what remains and what disappears.
FIO is a space of weaving between past and present,
where memory takes shape through matter,
and each thread becomes a component in the fabric of time.
Ana Isabel Freitas
Memory faces a complex dilemma:
the interplay between the mind, its shifting recollections,
and the tangible fragments that shape them.
This is further challenged by the limits of languages
and the intangible impressions that bind the visible and invisible
— forming the fabric of our (hi)stories.
Painting, textiles, video performance, and installations
continually constitute memories and events,
offering cultural identities and gathering elements of transmission.
Margalit Berriet
An existence “situated halfway between ‘the thing’ and ‘the representation’.”Henri Bergson
CATALOGUE
FIO
– Intangible –
Gestes, Traces, Mémoires
Ana Isabel Freitas
A Portuguese artist
based in Paris since 2015.
Ana’s work spans painting, textiles, ceramics, performance, and documentary cinema; exploring memories, transmission, and intimate narratives.
Through a transdisciplinary approach, she questions daily gestures, rural traditions, and the traces left by time, with particular focus on the role of the female body in creation. She holds degrees in painting (FBAUP, Porto) and cinema (ESTC, Lisbon), and is pursuing a practice-based PhD at Université Paris Nanterre. Her works and films have been exhibited in France and Portugal, and her documentaries awarded at international festivals.
© Ana-Isabel-Freitas
Soirée Privée
– Performance – Happening –
11 septembre 2025 — 19h
Billetterie – places limitées à 15 participant·e·s
As part of the exhibition
FIO – The Intangible Thread Gesture, Trace, Memory,
Ana Isabel Freitas invites you to
an exclusive evening of live creation.
This unique, intimate gathering offers a rare chance to witness
— and participate in —
a performative happening at the very heart of the artist’s process.
Reimagining her project
O Corpo, Entre a Vida e a Pintura and Madre Natura,
Ana Isabel Freitas will give shape to new site-specific installations,
unveiled to the public at the exhibition’s official opening the following day.
No images or recordings will be made or permitted !
the only trace of this evening will be the works themselves —
a fleeting moment shared,
embodied in matter and memory alone.
This event is presented in collaboration with Nuno Fidalgo —
© Nuno Fidalgo
Nuno Fidalgo
a singer, actor, and director.
Trained in both theatre and musicology, his work explores the intersections between vocal performance, theatre, and collective creation.
He also teaches music education and choral singing, drawing on an approach rooted in artistic pedagogy and the principles of New Education.
OPENING
EVENT – performé – 20H
Compagnie Cá e Lá
Actors and musicians
– “Artivismes / Artivismos” –
Exploring social and political engagement through artistic creation.
This performed event is part of the program for
the 18th edition of the Parfums de Lisbonne Festival.
© Companie. Cá e Lá photo cedit -Adrien Martins
Compagnie
Cá e Lá
Bilingual actors, musicians, and performers
An Excerpt from
Artivismes / Artivismos
Presented at the opening of
FIO – The Intangible Thread: Gesture, Trace, Memory
Originally created as part of the 18th edition of the Parfums de Lisbonne Festival,
this performance explores themes of social and political engagement
through artistic expression.
Founded in 2007 by the Franco-Portuguese bilingual company Cá e Lá,
Parfums de Lisbonne is a cross-cultural festival
bridging urban perspectives.
Through painting, theatre, music, dance, poetry, and cinema,
it investigates the relationship between Paris and Lisbon,
while amplifying voices that are often marginalized.
Artistic and theatrical direction: Graça Dos Santos
Literature: José Manuel Esteves
Dance: Adrien Martins
Costumes: Isabel Vieira
Piano: Leonardo Da Silva
With : Mariana Marques, Gonçalo Cordeiro, Marine Galliano,
Augusto Vellozo Pampolha, Leonardo Da Silva e Castro
More about
© Compagnie Cá e Lá photo cedit -Adrien Martins
NOCTURNE
Screening of filmed
– MEMORIES & FAMILY TRANSMISSION –
Friday, October 4, 2025 · 7:30 PM
An evening dedicated to filmed forms of memories,
featuring the screening of two documentaries
by Ana Isabel Freitas,
in direct resonance with the themes of the FIO Exhibition.
+
GUESTS
Sofia, Margarida et Maria Costa Antunes
The films Uma Vindima (A Harvest)
& No Meu Tempo, O Casamento (In My (Wedding) Day)
explore intergenerational narratives,
everyday gestures,
and the silent transmissions
between women and across generations.
De desgaste em desgaste,
sob o cinzel
das horas, a vida se
nos furta.
Como se uma gota de
azeite descesse, brandamente
descesse pelas
coisas.
António Cabral,
De Desgaste em
Desgaste et A
uma Oliveira
D’usure en usure,
sous le burin des
heures, la vie nous
échappe.
Comme si une goutte
d’huile d’olive descendait,
doucement descendait
sur les choses.
António Cabral,
D’usure en
usure et À un
olivier
From wear to wear,
under the chisel of
time, life slips away
from us.
As if a drop of olive
oil descended, gently
descended over
things.
António Cabral,
From Wear to
Wear and To an
Olive Tree
Uma Vindima (2015)
follows a family grape harvest in the Douro region, weaving together work, kinship, rituals, and the passage of time.
© Ana Isabel Freitas
© Ana Isabel Freitas
No Meu Tempo, o Casamento (2024)
draws on the stories of women from the same lineage to question the social and intimate constructions surrounding marriage in Portugal.
Sofia, Margarida et Maria Costa Antunes
The screening will give way to an intimate moment of cappella —
a mother and her two daughters,
offering melodies passed down through generations.
Their voices, unaccompanied and intertwined,
carry the weight of memories, emotions, and quiet inheritance.
as
a living thread of the FIO project,
this shared moment traces a path through time—
from bodies to voices,
from gestures to remembrances,
where the personal and the collective are gently woven together.
©Sofia, Margarida et Maria Costa Antunes @ Desfile da Mordomia 2023
If you wish to submit a project or activity or Live Performance
please contact us via email
at contact@memoire-a-venir.org
hmg@memoire-a-venir.org