Isabelle Ferreira’s exhibition Notre Feu, at MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), works from a gesture of rupture. Before crossing into France, Portuguese migrants fleeing the Salazar dictatorship would hand the smuggler a photograph of themselves that he would tear in two. The torn photograph, and the salto itself – the clandestine mountain crossings Portuguese migrants made into France in the early 1960s – is the exhibition’s point of departure. The catalogue follows a similar logic of separation and reunion, with the works themselves leading the way and the texts interrupting the narrative at the centre.

Notre Feu

Isabelle Ferreira’s exhibition Notre Feu, at MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), works from a gesture of rupture. Before crossing into France, Portuguese migrants fleeing the Salazar dictatorship would hand the smuggler a photograph of themselves, that he would tear in two. The torn photograph, and the salto itself (the clandestine mountain crossings Portuguese migrants made into France in the early 1960s) is the exhibition’s point of departure.

Isabelle Ferreira (France, 1972) is the daughter of Portuguese migrants. Her artistic process reflects the tensions present in her family’s story of migration and labour: a balance between research and instinctive repetition, control and release. Staples recur across her surfaces, piercing and joining in the same gesture, while the hammer often subtracts from the whole. Rupture and continuity are interwoven, working as both personal memory and a wider testimony to displacement.

The catalogue follows the structure of the exhibition. Opening with the works and installation views, it gives way to the curatorial texts before returning to the works, mirroring the sequential journey of the exhibition. This division is evoked by two different types of paper: a coated stock for the image sections and an uncoated recycled stock flecked with small black dots for the text. This subtle distinction is more evident through texture and touch than colour.

The serif typeface, with its sharp contrasts and geometric detail, echoes the piercing, stapling and tearing at the heart of Ferreira’s creative process. This grounds the catalogue in the present, while also acknowledging the past invoked by the source material on which the artist draws.

The cover is the catalogue's only bold feature: neon pink spreads from the inner cover to the blind-embossed text on the outer cover. The otabind binding lets the colour peek through when the book lies open.

Client: MAAT Museum
Category: Editorial Design
Year: 2025
Format: 195×255 mm

Editorial coordination: Nuno Carvalho
Photography: Guillaume Vieira
Texts: João Pinharanda, Joana P.R. Neves, Isabelle Ferreira, Victor Pereira